Like Light and Cloud Shadow
by Nudgy Turian
Summary: Preview: V's life was forever changed the night he brought an unconscious Evey Hammond down to his home. Little had he realized that they would ultimately change each other's life... for the better.
1. The End of the Beginning

**Like Light and Cloud Shadow  
**A "V for Vendetta" short story by Tina Price.

**Preview**: V's life was forever changed the night he brought an unconscious Evey Hammond down to his home. Little had he realized that they would ultimately change each other's life... for the better.

**Disclaimer**: V for Vendetta and all characters therein are the property of Warner Brothers Entertainment Company and DC Comics.

**Authors note**: This story is rated R. Criticism and advice are always appreciated!

* * *

**Chaper One: The end of the beginning**

Evey picked up the backpack containing her few meager belongings and looked around her room for the last time. The large bed was almost completely surrounded by books which were stacked from the floor to the ceiling. So many books, she had thought the first time she had seen them. How many years had her host spent reading them? What kind of life had he led down here, all alone, just him, his books and music?

Aside from the books and the bed, the only other bit of furniture was an old dressing table and mirror which her host had brought in for her. She paused to run her fingers over the inscription on the mirror's bevel: "Vi Veri Veniversum Vivus Vici".

V had translated it for her the first time she had read it. "By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe", he had proclaimed.

She had teased him by asking him if it was his personal motto. He hadn't answered her question, but she was sadly aware that if he had a personal motto, this had to be it.

Again she swept the room with her eyes. It had been V's room before he had brought her down here to share the safety of his Shadow Gallery with her. How ironic that she couldn't remain in this secret, safe place any longer, no matter how much she might wish otherwise.

It was simple, really. This place wasn't entirely safe for her anymore.

Because of him.

V.

If only he were just a man!

An ordinary man was something she could deal with... but V...

V was no mere man: Capable of moving and reacting with inhuman speed, he possessed muscle fibers which fired at an unholy rate. They were called fast-twitch muscle fibers to be exact. She had looked it up in one of the many books stacked in this very room. He not only had superior fibers, but he possessed them in abundance, having twice the human number in each muscle of his body.

Those same fast-twitch fibers made him stronger than a man twice his size. Velocity, after all, had much to do with force. She had seen him grasp a man by the wrist and effortlessly yank him completely into the air, smashing him into a brick wall eight feet away. During that fight, he had moved with a speed and agility that had astounded her. She had doubted her own eyes, thought that perhaps she had been in shock but then realized that time should have slowed, rather than sped up. That's what it always said in the books she had read, anyway.

Yes, right from the start, at that very first meeting, he had seemed both more and less than human.

To top it off, his speed and strength were balanced with a grace and smoothness of motion which, even now, never failed to astonish her. He used these abilities to his advantage, too, appearing at times to have stepped out of thin air. No sound, no visual cue proceeded him as he conjured himself out of the darkness to confront those he hunted.

But it wasn't his physical abilities that unnerved her.

It was his mind.

He was as unique in mind as he was in body. Although the most intelligent and learned man she had ever met, he was, for all that, not quite sane. The mental and physical tortures he had endured had given him his superhuman abilities, his intellect and even his charisma, but at the same time damaged his soul in a way for which there are no words. His was a genius born of that madness, making him both Angel and Demon in equal measure.

A living contradiction, he was both light and darkness, attractive and frightening, real and illusion, tender and deadly.

Yet none of that was why she was leaving. None of that was why she was no longer safe here.

The truth was, that despite everything he had done, she was in danger of loving him too much. It would be mad to remain here with him, to allow herself to feel even more for him... especially since last night.

And not when they both knew that it would end on November 5th.

Not when she had promised him that she would not try to deter him form his goal.

Evey shook her head and turning, left the small room. Moving slowly, and as quietly as possible, she entered the main gallery.

It didn't take her long to spot him. He had his back to her and was leaning over his antique jukebox, listening to a selection.

She paused for a moment and watched him, this one last time, while he seemed not to be aware of her. Her heart pounded painfully in her throat as she took in the wide shoulders and strong back, which tapered to a lean waist. His old fashioned Jacobean jacket was tailored perfectly to him and showed off, what seemed to her to be, the perfect male form. His britches and knee high boots likewise flattered his well proportioned legs.

Oh how she wanted to walk up behind him and run her hands over those shoulders, that back, those legs.. to feel again the movement of pure power beneath his flesh, of muscles which felt like steel.

Not for the first time, she found herself wishing that they had met under much different circumstances, that this was a world in which they could be together. She sighed. No use in even thinking it. They were who they were in the here and now.

With a heavy heart she moved forward and seeing him shift his stance ever so slightly, knew he was aware of her presence. Was that a sudden sag in his stance? Had his posture subtly shifted to one of defeat? Had she really become that good at reading his smallest movements?

There was no point in putting it off...

"V, I'm leaving," she said.

* * *

A new day was dawning as Evey emerged back into the real world.

How strange to think of it that way... but the world she had shared with V had never seemed quite real to her. It had been surreal, day and night passing there with no visual cue save that found in a clock's face. Even the night she had shared with him now seemed to have been nothing more than a dream.

Had it really only been last night?

She was surprised at the tears which began to sting her eyes at the mere remembrance, for remembering brought back the pain of knowing it wouldn't, couldn't happen again. It had been both the most wonderful and yet saddest night of her young life and just knowing that she could turn back, that she could even now throw herself into his arms...

Evey threw her back against the cold brick wall of a nearby building and sobbed uncontrollably. "Oh God, let me be strong", she prayed. And then, "How will I live with this decision? How? Am I to be left with nothing to console me but the promise of one last, very final meeting?"

After a few minutes, she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, pushed herself away from the wall and hurried down the street. She had to find a place to live, had to start a new life. She would deal with the fallout of her decision after she ensured her survival.

* * *

Back in the Shadow Gallery, V shook himself out of a state of paralysis and forced himself to move his feet. He didn't care where he walked, only that he move from the spot he had been rooted to, the place where he had been standing when she disappeared from his life. Almost without being aware of what he was doing, he reached up and removed his mask as his feet continued to shuffle forward.

It was with both a start and a sense of dread that he eventually came back to himself to find that he had been wandering in the direction of his dressing mirror. "Of course", he thought bitterly, "Only I would be twisted enough to torture myself with the very thing I denied her just last night."

He didn't fight it, but looked up, looked directly into the mirror and at his own face, a face he had avoided viewing for a good three years now.

Any hope that the years had improved matters was quickly squashed. Slowly, he moved closer, forced himself to take it all in.

How could he inflict this upon her? How could he live, seeing the love in her eyes replaced with revulsion? Better to keep the mask, keep her respect and instead let her go. She deserved better than him; a man who had imprisoned her, tortured her... a man who could never live in her world, a man who had lived these twenty years with only one goal in mind, a goal which would, more than likely, be sealed with his death. Yet, what would be the point in living when he could never make her happy, when he couldn't even bring himself to show her his face?

He had known that she would leave him since last night. Yet he had not expected it to happen so soon. He had hoped... prayed for at least one more week. If only she had given him that, perhaps he could have found a solution... or failing that, he would at least have had a few more sweet memories to take to the grave with him.

In a fit of rage and agony, he slammed his mask into the mirror, seemingly smashing his reflection into bits. Then, overcome with emotion, he collapsed into the nearby chair.

"Evil may not be done that good may come of it," she had quoted once, while she had still been recovering from the torture and starvation he had inflicted upon her. At the time he had again been trying to ease his conscience by justifying it as a means to an end: that end being that she no longer lived in fear.

The remembrance of the look of pity and revulsion on her face when she had spoken still twisted his stomach.

He could never, ever risk seeing that look on her face again! Better that he let her go!

He hadn't even deserved what she had already given him; a memory to carry with him to the other side.

Dropping his face into his hands, he sobbed as he hadn't in over twenty years.

**Next time: What lies Beneath**

**

* * *

**

How should we be able to forget about those ancient myths that are at the beginning of all peoples, the myths about dragons that at the last moment turn into princesses;

perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave.

Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us.

So you must not be frightened... if a sadness rises up before you larger than any you have ever seen; if a restiveness, like light and cloud shadow, passes over your hands and over all that you do.

You must think that something is taking place in you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand; it will not let you fall.

Excerpt: Letters To a Young Poet

-Ranier Maria Rilke

* * *


	2. What Lies Beneath

**Of light and Cloud Shadow**

A "V for Vendetta" short story by Tina Price.

**Preview**: V's life was forever changed the night he brought an unconscious Evey Hammond down to his home. Little had he realized that they would ultimately change each other's life... for the better.

**Disclaimer**: V for Vendetta and all characters therein are the property of Warner Brothers Entertainment Company and DC Comics.

**Authors note**: This story is rated R. Criticism and advice are always appreciated!

* * *

**Chapter Two: What Lies Beneath**

With a sense of security that she hadn't felt since leaving the shadow gallery, Evey curled up in her bed. And it was her bed – hers alone. She had managed to track down the right person, obtain a new ID and procure work in one of the backstreet markets where she wouldn't really attract any attention.

As for her flat; she had lucked out. Her employer owned the building and had turned the two room place over to her when its previous tenant seemed unlikely ever to return after having being detained.

As she lay there under the covers, she thought back yet again on time she had shared with the mysterious man known only as V. Once again her thoughts drifted back to a turning point they had shared and which had led to the heartbreak she now experienced.

V often disappeared at odd hours and was gone for periods from several hours to even a day or two. There was never any rhyme or reason to it that she could decipher. He was a force, like the wind and kept his own time. Perhaps it was that time no longer held any meaning for him? She knew he slept but never had a clue as to when.

On the night in question he had been gone far longer than his usual, for a full three days in fact. Her only warning that it would be some time before he returned had been a note found on the kitchen table informing her of her food choices for the next few days and apologizing for having to be away a while.

The time alone had been both grueling and enlightening. She had first experienced a numb loneliness which left her wandering through the gallery with absolutely no idea what to do with herself. Her attempt to kill time by watching TV had ended after several hours because of her disgust at the propaganda spouted by every single show. She had then cooked a meal, watched a movie and gone to bed.

A few hours later she was up again and just as bored as earlier. That was when she began to wonder what it must have been like for him all these years. Did he start off feeling as lost as she now was? Had he spend much of his time collecting the art that now filled the gallery before turning to his plan or had he pursued both at once? What about the books; when had he begun to collect them and how?

It was then then that a thought of some adventure came to her. After all, V was gone for a time... why shouldn't she truly explore his home? If there were any places he did not wish her to be then he would have locked them up, right?

"Now then," she asked herself. "where do you sleep?" In truth she had no clue. She had quickly come to realize that the room she slept in had not been a mere storage room, but his bedroom. The bed that was now hers had to have been his.

The night he carried her down here, unconscious, he would not have had time to place sheets on an unused bed before laying her on it. And when she had awakened, she had been aware that the sheets beneath her had been hastily straightened, that someone had recently been sleeping there. Then later, after fleeing back to the room in terror and grief, she had discovered a set of clean sheets had been placed thoughtfully upon one of the book stacks.

Since that night, the bed and the room had remained hers. He slept elsewhere, but where?

She knew of only four doors in the shadow gallery. One was the way in and out of the subterranean lair. She already knew that there were no rooms off that passage which he could be using.

The second door was always locked, even now, but rarely had she see him venture through it, so you discounted it as a possibility for now.

The third door led to the fake detention center he had constructed. For what purpose had he created it before she had unwittingly become a prisoner there, she shuddered to think on.

Before she had become his "detainee" the door had always been locked. The one time she had tested it since recovering from the ordeal, she had found it open. She supposed she would eventually have to venture there and confront those unpleasant memories, but she didn't relish that one bit.

The last door led to the crude bathroom V had fashioned out of a small alcove off to the side of his makeup area. It contained a very small tub with a shower, a sink, a lo and barely room to stand between them.

When she had first been his "guest" Evey had taken every opportunity to scour the room for evidence she might use as a cue to his true appearance. A hair, skin, an eyelash... she looked for anything at all in the tub, sink and on the floor. To her immense frustration, never had she found a thing. It was as though he had anticipated this and taken meticulous care to remove all traces of himself before leaving the room.

Something else had bothered her about it as well... and now it clicked as significant. V's appearance was as tidy and meticulous as any of his undertakings. His clothes were always clean, neatly pressed and carefully inspected for the slightest bit of imaginary dust or lint. V himself never smelled anything other than fresh. And here is where the puzzle came together for her: V, as far as she could tell, never seemed to shower in their common bathroom.

She had thought right up until now that perhaps he did so while she slept, yet never had she awakened to hear the water running... and she certainly had become a light sleeper these days.

So what if he really had never showered in there while she lived with him?

What if he showered elsewhere... for instance, in the delousing room of the detainment area?

With her heart pounding in her throat she pushed open the large wooden door which led to the phony facility.

She hated this place, loathed what it represented both to her and to the man she tried so hard to understand. He had tortured her here, had given her back her life, but also severely damaged her ability to trust him.. or trust his sense of judgment anyway. And he...

Had he tortured others here? Had he used this "set" in which to interrogate those who stood between him and his sense of justice? Or had he created this place while she had been living with Gordan for the express purpose of "setting her free"?

It was all too much for her to think on now, making her shake with both anger and anxiety. Soon, perhaps, she would confront him and make her explain it to her. Until then, she just didn't want to go there.

Moving down the long, gray corridor she felt a sort of depression settle upon her and shivered as memories came rushing back. Once again she felt herself being dragged down this hallway by the scruff of her neck, steely hands gripping the collar of her rough gown and nearly throttling her while returning her to her cell.

The cell was down a hallway which opened on her right.

She hurried past that corridor to a doorway just on the other side, then pushing open the door, she stepped over the threshold.

The delousing room, it had been known as. It was a square, white tiled room with a drain in the center of the floor and a one-way mirror on one wall. There in was a pipe coming out of the wall and attached to a long hose which ended in a power jet wand. Against the wall was a bucket, the one he had filled with a smelly, medicinal scented substance he would douse her with.

It was in this room that some of the worse humiliations had been visited upon her by a thug named Rossiter. Or at least, that was what she had believed at the time. To have found out in the end that it had been V himself... had been almost too painful to take. It had completed her humiliation, made it far worse than she ever would have thought possible. And it was this part of her ordeal which had left her spewing venom at him.

"You're sick! You're evil!" she had spat as she realized the scope of his betrayal. Yet there he had stood, in his impeccable outfit, smoothing it down and acting unconcerned while she came to terms with the fact that he had done such things to her!

Even now, the memories came flooding back and a sob escaped her as she remembered being "processed".

He had literally torn her clothes off her, then hung her on a hook by her bound wrists. Next came the pressure washing as he verbally humiliated her. He had called her a filthy cow... and that was the nicest thing he had said as he took his time in hosing her down. Every inch of her, even her most private areas, had been scoured by the forceful spray until she could do nothing more than cry out in pain. Finally, when she couldn't even cry anymore, so raw was her throat, he had taken her off the hook, pulled a rough garment over her, shaved her scalp and thrown her into a dark, cold cell.

She had spent the remainder of the night in a huddle in the corner, shivering and half out of her mind with pain and fear.

The daily torture had begun the following morning: cigarette burns, sleep deprivation, near drownings... but his favored torture involved the so-called routine delousings.

Had it aroused him sexually? Had he stood in this very room and enjoyed doing that to her? Tears tracked down her face at the thought of it and she realized that despite her feelings for him, that she hadn't even begun to come to terms with what he had done.

She wanted an explanation, she wanted an apology... she wanted to know the sordid truth of what had been going through his mind but she doubted she would ever have the courage to bring it up.

Shaking her head, she wiped furiously at her eyes, dashing the tears away. She had come here with a purpose and would not give in to any more self pity. And as she stood there and confronted this near past he had created for her, her fear and horror faded away to be replaced instead by a mix of both anger and sadness.

Then a calmness settled over her as she faced the memories and gained mastery over them. Reminding herself of why she was here, she began to play the detective and again perused the room.

The power washer had been hung on the hook which had formerly held her bound wrists and fashioned into a usable shower, which meant that her assumption was right:

This was where V cleaned up.

Squatting down near the jury-rigged shower, she began to inspect the tile floor... and was elated when her search was almost immediately rewarded. Holding her breath, still afraid to believe that what she was seeing was real, she extended her hand and carefully ran her finger over the single hair she had found. It stuck to her and she was able to tease it from the tile, bringing her thumb into play to secure it.

"Oh my God..." she breathed, holding it up to the light.

The hair was straight, medium brown and about two centimeters long. It wasn't hers and as there was little chance that anyone other than V had been recently using this shower...

"It's his," she gasped. "It's a piece of him."

So now she knew something about the man beneath the mask; nothing of much consequence but something nonetheless. He had at least some hair and that hair was was a brown color.

How strange to be reminded that the hair she had come to think of as his was but a black wig. How bizarre to have the man and the symbol separate even a little in her mind. If so small a thing as his seeing this one hair and discovering his hair color could be so disorienting, then might it not prove to be too much if she ever glimpsed the man himself?

She shook her head. He was who he was. Although she might be startled, shocked, or even horrified by the real man, he would still remain as familiar and unchanged to her as her own reflection.

Again she contemplated the hair she held between her fingers. Should she keep it to remind herself that he was, when all was said and done, only human in the end? She sighed and let the hair fall to the tiles below. There was no point, for a part of him would always be far more than human, would always be the symbol known a V.

And another part of him, which he tried to keep hidden, was a man...

Evey was keenly aware of that every time he was anywhere in her vicinity. He was a mix of every dangerous thing under the sun. Add to that his rich, eloquent voice and you had a surefire recipe for enticing female desire.

With a sigh and a last look around, Evey left V's shower room and turned back down the passage lined with detention cells.

The first door on her right was labeled as a storage room, but upon careful inspection she discovered that the door was false. There really was no room; it was merely a cleverly covered part of the wall.

The first door on her left was the interrogation room. This was a room she knew to be real and which, during her detainment, she had dreaded visiting almost as much as the delousing room.

Reaching for the door knob she was surprised to find it locked.

Why would he leave this entire false detainment center unlocked, yet take the precaution of locking this one door? All at once she knew that she had to get inside that room. Whatever he was hiding in there, it was something she must uncover.

It took her only seconds to determine the best way to bypass the lock… and she quickly backtracked and entered the shower room. Picking up the heavy, metal bucket from its place on the floor, she swung it full force into the one-way mirror. With a crash, the glass exploded outward, leaving a very satisfying layer of shards on the desk and floor beyond.

The destruction of that one small part of this false place proved exhilarating to her, leaving her with an adrenaline rush which made her feel as though she could do anything.

Was that how he felt when he fought the corrupt, the guilty, and the government itself?

Shaking away the thought, she used the bucket as a step stool and after carefully removing the last glass shards from the bottom of the wall frame, levered herself over it. Once on the other side, she paused to allow her eyes to adjust to the darker room as she scanned the gloom around her.

There was something sitting on the desk.

She moved forward to investigate and then froze, her heart leaping painfully into her throat.

V was standing in the corner watching her!

Shocked, all she could do was stare… until she realized what she was really seeing. With a sigh of relief, she gingerly made her way across the glass-covered floor and flipped on the lights.

In the corner, on a hat stand, were V's cloak, mask and hat. He had arranged them, for some reason all his own, so that he himself almost seemed to be lurking in the shadows. Even his boots were there, peaking out from under the edge of the cloak.

Tearing her eyes away from the sight, Evey finally investigated a neat pile of clothing on the desk. Carefully, she lifted one item after another, taking stock of them; his jacket, britches and shirt lay atop his socks and underwear. Every item was in black or gray.

With a blush she realized that his boxers were made of fine, gray-colored silk, and somehow it seemed to fit in with his personality.

At the bottom of the pile were a fresh towel and a bar of soap. Maybe he didn't have enough hair to warrant the use of shampoo, but then again maybe he either wasn't going to wash his hair, or he was going to use soap instead. She shrugged; no useful information there.

Giving the room one more once over and not finding anything else of interest, she made to leave but found that the door was locked on this side as well, dead bolted, apparently.

"Damn," she breathed. She would have to climb back out the way she came in and with the bucket still on the floor on the other side, a chair would now have to serve as her step stool.

Yanking the chair form the desk, she positioned it beneath the hole in the wall and prepared to make her escape. It was as she was swinging one leg up and over the now empty mirror frame that the chair suddenly slid backwards. The fine, broken glass shards on the floor had destroyed a good deal of the traction it might otherwise have had.

Evey was pitched forward. For a brief second, as her shoulder hit the side of the mirror frame, she thought she would be able to keep her balance, but the sudden pain in her shoulder distracted her just enough to slow her reflexes. She ducked her head and managed to flip as she tumbled forward, landing hard upon her back in the shower room.

Stunned, she lay there for a moment and forced herself to take a breath. Aside from the intense pain in her shoulder, and the certainty that her back was bruised, she seemed none the worse for wear.

It was only when she was back on her feet that she knew that she hadn't been so fortunate after all.

There was blood on the mirror frame and on the floor where she had landed.

She clutched at her left shoulder only to have her hand come away covered with blood. The pain blossomed horridly when a second check uncovered a deep laceration on the back of her shoulder, in a hard to reach spot.

Close inspection of the window frame revealed a small, but nasty sliver of glass still held in place right where her shoulder had struck the opening.

A wave of dizziness overtook her as she realized that she was bleeding heavily enough to leave large splatters on the tile floor. How would she be able to tend her own wound when she could barely even reach it?

Evey forced herself to take a few deep, slow breaths. It was enough to focus her on what she had to do first: stop the bleeding.

Carefully, she pulled her T-shirt up over her head, then used a glass shard from the floor to put a tear into it. Stepping on one end she then pulled the other, effectively ripping a thick strip from the bottom. Using the wall as an assist to her free hand, she balled up the shirt, positioned it over her wound and then wrapped the strip of shirt around it. She was able to tie it tightly by using both hands and assisting with her teeth.

There. It seemed to be a pretty good pressure bandage if she did say so herself. But now what? Again her thoughts turned back to her purpose in being here. There was no point in rushing right back to the Shadow Gallery to disinfect her shoulder when she first had to allow it to stop bleeding.

She might as well press on and finish her search.

Again she ventured down the corridor housing the detention cells. There were ten of them, five on each side of the hall, all of them on just the other side of the interrogation room and phony storage room.

The first six doors, those to cells I , II, III, VIII, IX and X, turned out to be as fake as the door to the storage room.

Cell IV, had been hers. It was, upon inspection, exactly as it had been when she had last been in it. Not wanting to revisit it, even for a moment, she quickly closed the door and moved on.

Cell V... "Shit..." she exclaimed as she stared at it and finally made the connection. The Roman numeral, five looked like a V... Could it be? Had he been prisoner V? Had such a horrible thing as that become his very identity?

Evey swung the door open and was not at all surprised to find a sleeping mat, pillow, orange jumpsuit and blankets on the floor. This then was where he had been sleeping. But why! Why had he felt compelled to relive his past as a prisoner once he had given his bed up to her?

"He is mad..." she breathed, still shocked by the very notion. She felt faint and both cold and sweaty to boot, but it wasn't due to shock from her wound; a quick check showed that the bandage still seemed to be doing its job. No. It was the mental anguish of discovering just how much V was still suffering from his past.

Her strength and resolve fading, Evey closed the door and hurried to end her search.

Across the hall was cell VI. It turned out to really be a small storage room. In it she found guard uniforms, orange prisoner jumpsuits and pullovers, metal food trays and cans of dog food along with a can opener.

She almost retched as she realized what the inedible food she had finally been forced to choke down had really been. One day she would pay him back for this, she silently vowed. Closing the door she moved on to the last cell.

Cell VII was a surprise indeed, for behind the door was an as yet, to her eye, unseen continuation of the shadow gallery. It was about half the size as the space he had already made use of, unheated and poorly lit. There were signs that he had begun to wire it with more lights and some heaters, so perhaps he was thinking of expanding his current space.

Inspecting the area carefully, Evey discovered two more doors. One seemed to be an alternate entrance from up above, for although the door was locked, there was light on the other side and a constant cold breeze, both of which were noticeable at the crack where the door met the floor.

The final door was likewise locked, but she had a clue where it might lead to...

Ripping a small piece from her already mangled T-shirt, she slid it under the door. Then she returned back through the detainment facility to the shadow gallery. Marching to the perpetually locked door a the back of the gallery, she stooped down and picked up that same piece of T-shirt.

A feeling of both triumph and disquiet settle upon her then. She now knew every part of the labyrinth her host shared with her. She knew where he slept, where he showered, even what kind of underwear he favored...

But she still knew little about him, about what drove him, what haunted him...

When he returned, things were going to change, she vowed. Even if she had to follow him everywhere,and push him to the edge, she would get something out of him. She would glimpse what lay beneath the mask, the symbol.

She would reveal the man who hid himself so carefully. Reveal not his face, but who he really was. Even if all he shared with her was a small bit of himself, it would be enough.

For now.

Exhausted and in some pain, Evey went in search of first aid supplies and perhaps some strong whiskey to top it off.

It was going to be a long, sleepless night and she had much courage to muster.

**Next: Of Hope and Heartbreak**


	3. Of Hope and Heartbreak

**Like Light and Cloud Shadow **  
A "V for Vendetta" short story by Tina Price.

**Preview:** V's life was forever changed the night he brought an unconscious Evey Hammond down to his home. Little had he realized that they would ultimately change each other's life... for the better.

**Disclaimer: **V for Vendetta and all characters therein are the property of Warner Brothers Entertainment Company and DC Comics.

**Authors note:** This story is rated R. Criticism and advice are always appreciated!

* * *

**Chapter Three: Of hope and Heartbreak **

Down below London, in a long-forgotten subbasement now known as the Shadow Gallery, a man sat at a vanity, before a covered mirror and pondered his future.

On the vanity before him sat a mask, strapped to a mannequin head.

Ironically, all of London would have recognized his companion, yet not one living soul could put a name to what remained of the man's ruined visage.

He was a man without a name, without a history...

A man without a face...

He had, for the longest time, fancied himself no longer a man at all, but a symbol. Yet, the man in him had never quite died and last night that man had been resurrected...

...with it a powerful desire to go on living.

The man and the symbol, both known only as V, were at odds now, arguing the risks the man posed to their common goal. The danger of altering a plan which had been twenty years in the making was unconscionable.

Those responsible for the atrocities carried out against the man and his country had to be brought to justice. Their evil, self-serving, so called government had to be destroyed.

What right did the man have to ask for life if it risked the plan meant to restore justice and life to this country?

"Would the man truly risk his ideal and so many lives..." asked the symbol. " for the love of a woman?"

For twenty years V had willed himself to go on living only so that the plan would be seen through to its end. And that end had been designed to culminate with his release from suffering so that he might finally join all the other victims in a final, well deserved rest.

He had never, in all that time, had any other reason for living...

...until the day he met Evey. Then, last night he did the unthinkable and fell in love with her. Oh, he had fought it for months, denied that he felt anything other than a fatherly affection for her, but he had been lying to himself and she had called him on it, made him admit the truth.

And that truth was that they were two halves of a whole. She was the rain to quench his fire and whenever they came together, in the meeting of minds, a mighty elemental force was unleashed. Together they achieved balance, clarity and an understanding of the truth of who they each really were.

It had taken a joining of another sort for him to finally drop his defenses enough to finally accept this, to accept that she was the one thing in his painful life which brought him peace and respite from the demons that drove him.

Her brave, unconditional acceptance of him had set him free.

As his thoughts were drawn back to memories of the crucial turning point in his life... the man spoke to the mask that represented an ideal, "Perhaps our fate is not yet written... who knows what the future will bring?"

Down in a long forgotten train tunnel, part of London's old tube system, a strange man labored to restore the badly damaged rails. He wore a full white work suit which covered him head to toe and resembled the bio-terrorism hazzmat suits of a day gone by. The suit had a hood which encased his head and his neck. On his feet he wore white, rubber, mid-calf boots. On his hands were similar looking gloves. Over his mouth and nose he wore a respirator mask which was attached to the tank on his back by flexible tubing. Over this sat very large, gray goggles and on his head perched a dusty hard hat with a strap on torch. Barely any of his skin was exposed to view. Dirt, fine soot and mud coated nearly every part of him. In truth it made him look almost alien.

He had been toiling for nearly three days and around him were ample clues that attested to the fact that he hadn't left in all that time: a small kerosene camp stove, a pot, a plate, utensils, a tea kettle and cup, a cardboard box filled with a selection of simple foods and essentials, a large jug of water and a dusty old sleeping bag.

As he pounded the last spikes into a rail he had salvaged from a different tunnel, he thought once again about the woman who awaited his return. Was she bored, staying all this time alone in his home? Might she possibly miss him, even a little bit? He certainly could not ask for more than that. It would be such a small thing, and yet to him it would be everything.

He missed her as he had never missed another, or at least as far as his memories allowed. Twenty years, he had spent alone in his Shadow Gallery. Twenty years in which he had convinced himself that he was not lonely, that he needed only his books and his master plan to sustain him.

How deluded he had been. Only now, finally having a companion to truly carry on conversations with, did he realize that he had been as a man dying of thirst. Evey was his long, cool glass of water. Even on days when they barely spoke, just watching her move about gave him joy.

And he was no longer lonely.

V drove the last spike into the rail and tossed his sledge aside. God, but he missed her, his Evey. Only his strong will had kept him from returning to her earlier than this day. He had set a goal for himself and with this last spike driven home, he had achieved it. He could now turn his attention to a far more enjoyable endeavor; interacting with her.

Quickly he made his way down the few tunnels which separated them and unlocking a heavy wooden door, entered the, as yet, unused portion of the Shadow Gallery. As much as he yearned to head straight for his home, he was well aware of the state he was in. Filthy, sweaty and none too fresh-smelling to boot, he was in dire need of a shower.

He would never dream of greeting his guest looking anything other than impeccable… and truth be told, he yearned for the feel of the warm spray and a good scrubbing.

Entering the false detainment area, he unlocked the interrogation room and then froze on the threshold. The mirror had been demolished and lay in a ruin of glass shards at his feet. One of the chairs had been moved next to the hole in the wall where the mirror had once been.

It was instantly obvious to him that Evey had finally dared to revisit this part of his world. He had expected it, though not so soon after her ordeal. Then again... they did say that idleness was the Devil's own playground, so perhaps the few days of solitude had been the catalyst to this escapade.

He was, however, surprised that she had actually broken into the locked interrogation room. Her manner of doing so had been straight-forward and smart. He doubted that there were many young ladies out in the world who would have chosen to destroy the mirror. Most, he was certain, would have simply tried to pick the lock, and failing that, left well enough alone.

With a small shrug, he entered the room and gathered his things. They would certainly have some interesting things to discuss this night, and that was something he found appealing indeed.

It was when he entered the room around the corner to shower that he froze with a gasp, his eyes having immediately noticed the blood on the floor.

Panic set in.

There was enough blood splashed about that he feared she had been severely injured. And it appeared dried and dark enough to make him fear that she had been hurt quite some time ago.

With a curse, he dropped his things, and all but flew back down the corridor to the Shadow Gallery. His heart began to pound faster when he didn't immediately see her. Had she retired to her bed and died there?

Giving in to a state of high anxiety, he threw her bedroom door open and cried out her name.

...and was instantly rewarded as she sat bolt upright and screamed.

Even in the dim light from outside, he could see the fright in her eyes, but his relief, over finding her at least conscious, prevented his feeling even the slightest bit contrite. In a split second he was sitting on the bed gripping her arms.

"How badly are you injured?" he demanded, shaking her slightly.

She gasped, then gulped as she finally recognized his voice and could again draw breath. "V…" she pleaded, breathlessly, beginning to shiver. "You're hurting me!"

He instantly released his grip, but instead pulled her to his chest and wrapped his arms around her. "I'm sorry," he apologized, "but when I saw all the blood… Dearest Evey, what have you done to yourself?"

"It's just my shoulder," she replied. "Really, it's nothing."

Carefully, he held her away and rose from the bed. "Let me see it," he demanded, turning on the floor lamp.

As the room lit up, he took in her appearance; her face a bit too pale and her lips too flushed... If anything, these clues squashed any elation he felt at her being alive.

She was staring at him curiously and he felt himself flush as he remembered how filthy he was. Deciding in the end that there were more important things to worry about, he placed his hands on his hips and tilted his face, indicating that he was still waiting for her to comply.

She nodded, turned her back to him and pointed to the back of her left shoulder. "I did the best I could, but it's in an awkward spot," she explained. "It's been throbbing terribly the last few hours."

Sitting back down on the bed beside her, he threw his filthy work gloves onto the floor. This was no time to be worrying about sparing her the sight of his hands, not when he would be needing his sense of fine touch.

Gently, he eased the scooped neck of her nightgown down over the shoulder in question. She had somehow managed to slap a sterile gauze pad and tape over her wound. Carefully, he peeled the tape from her skin and lifted off the gauze, which was discolored and stuck to the laceration beneath.

His hiss of indrawn breath was all it took to alert her of the problem.

"It's infected, isn't it?"

"It is. When did this happen?"

"The night before last."

"What did you disinfect it with?"

"Peroxide. It was the only thing that I could pour over it without dyeing half my back." She looked back at him over her other shoulder. "How bad is it?"

Knowing what he would need to do to her in order to heal her shoulder, he took a moment to comfort her. Gently he pulled her back so that she could lean against his chest. Then he brought a hand around and briefly placed it on her forehead.

"You're running a fever," he whispered, wrapping his arms around her to keep her warm. "My dear, don't ever use peroxide if you can help it. It usually does more harm than good."

"I'll be certain to remember that," came her dry reply.

"Your wound certainly is not good," he confessed, "but, fortunately, I do have the means to set you right."

"This is going to hurt, isn't it?"

It was a statement, she uttered and not a question, so he merely nodded in reply.

"You're strong, Evey," he murmured, as he rocked her gently with his body. "You've faced far worse at my hands than what's to come, I'm sorry to say."

It was her turn to nod. "So what will it be today, another power-washing?" she quipped.

He flinched, then stood up, once more masking his inner turmoil with his calm, reasonable persona.

Evey immediately turned towards him, "V, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to…"

"That's quite all right, and I'm sure that you did," he interrupted, trying desperately to steer her away from THAT conversation. Then, meaning to take the edge off his brusque reply, his voice softened a bit, "Here's what I would like for you to do; Gather your robe and anything you might want and take a long, hot shower. Try to direct the water over your shoulder as much as possible and no, it needn't be a strong spray. When the water begins to run cool, you can come out to me, just do not dry or touch your wound and leave it free of your clothes."

She sighed and rose from the bed. "Well, I'll just go shower then, shall I?"

"Evey, wait…" He reached out and stopped her with a hand on her arm. "I promise you that we can talk about whatever you wish later. It's just that your shoulder really must be immediately taken care of."

"All right."

She began to walk away, then stopped. "V?" she asked.

"Yes?"

"I missed you while you were away," she confessed. "Quite a lot in fact."

His heart skipped a few beats as his spirit soared. He could barely believe it when he responded honestly, "No more than I missed you you."

She took a step back towards him, regarding him curiously and then broke out in a radiant smile.

"Blue," was all she said.

"Pardon?"

"Your eyes... they're blue." she elaborated. Was that a triumphant tone in her voice? "I can see them through your goggles, in the light from the lamp."

"You are quite right, my eyes are blue," he confirmed.

"They're beautiful.." she sighed.

In the next instant she was gone, and shaking off his amazement and an unreasonable pride over something which was, after all, his parents' accomplishment rather than his own, he went in search of the things he needed to treat her.

Miles away, in the here and now and unknown to V, Evey had given up trying to sleep and sat on her sofa wrapped in a throw. Thoughts of her erstwhile companion tormented her, for she missed him terribly. Once again she revisited memories from the time everything had changed between them. They were all she had of V... at least until she kept her promise to him and returned to the Shadow Gallery one last time.

V himself did not believe in coincidence, so the fact that they both were revisiting memories of the same occasion would have been seen as further proof that they were a part of each other, that distance alone could not diminish the connection they shared.

Evey absently rubbed the scar on her left shoulder and remembered...

She had followed his instructions to the letter, the shower warming her and easing her shivers, but at the same time stinging her wound. Yet, she barely minded, so giddy was she over having glimpsed an actual part of his face.

He had deep blue, wide set eyes and in those eyes she had seen an expression of such concern that it had nearly rooted her to the spot.

V had blue eyes and his hair, if he had any left to speak of, was a medium brown. How strange to know this and still think of him having blank black orbs, black hair and a face as pale as ivory.

She was snapped out of her revelry by another fit of shivering. The water was turning cool. Quickly, she turned off the faucets and toweled dry, taking care to avoid her shoulder. Then she eased her nightgown back on, put her hair up with a few pins and left the bathroom.

He had placed her slippers near the door for her, as well as his own dressing robe. She was grateful for his thoughtfulness and the lend of the heavy garment, for her teeth had begun to chatter violently and the gallery seemed to her to be positively freezing.

And then he was there, helping to drape the robe over her good shoulder and steering her towards the sofa with an arm about her waist.

"Here, sit in my usual spot," he coaxed. "This way you can lean against the armrest."

Evey instantly slumped into the cushions, drew her legs up under her and burrowed more deeply into his robe. She looked at him as he sat beside her, only then noticing that he had apparently showered himself. Once more he was dressed as the only V she really knew, his mask and wig back in place. The only difference were the sheer surgical gloves he wore in place of his usual black leather ones. Through them she could see the angry, scarred skin of his hands.

"I've made you some tea," he said, handing her a steaming cup he retrieved from the coffee table. "Take these with it," he added as she took the cup from him.

She stared down at the pills in her palm. "What are they?"

"Antibiotics."

"You keep antibiotics here?" she asked incredulously.

"Well," he shrugged. "When you get injured as often as I do, it doesn't pay to take chances. They're a good thing to keep on hand, as I am sure you will agree."

She was going to ask him where he got them from, but then decided she didn't want to know. Instead, she did as he had asked and downed the pills.

"Good," he nodded as he took the teacup from her. "Go ahead and turn around. Let's get this over with."

With some anxiety, she noted the covered tray on the coffee table next to the tea set. He had a point, though; it was best to just get it over with. So, with some trepidation she turned and draped her upper body over the the armrest, offering up her shoulders and back to him.

As he had back in the bedroom, he uncovered her shoulder. Then she heard him removing something from the tray. When she turned her head to look, a strong hand grasped her cheek and stopped her.

"Don't look, dearest," he murmured. "I'll tell you what I am about to do before I do it, alright?"

"OK." Her voice sounded small even to her.

"Evey, I'm going to put some lidocain cream on your wound. It'll smart like the dickens at first, but then it will help to numb you up."

She nodded and immediately felt him smearing the cream into her wound as gently as he could.

"Bloody hell!" she hissed as it began to burn. It felt as though a hive of bees were stinging her already painful shoulder and she couldn't keep from fidgeting restlessly in an attempt to escape the pain.

Then a pair of strong hands began to rub her back and kneed the base of her neck. "Shhhh..." he soothed, his mask dipping down close to her ear. "It's alright. It's feeling better already, isn't it?"

She sighed, "Uhh-huhh..." and began to relax as his touch distracted her from the pain. By the time the medicine's numbing effects kicked in, she didn't care what he did to her shoulder, just so long as he soothed her like this afterwards.

All too soon his hands stilled and then left her back. "Your shoulder should be numb enough now," he reassured her. "I'm going to scrub away the unhealthy tissue, clean it out and rub in some topical antibiotic. After that, you get a fresh bandage and a nice shot of whiskey."

"Make it two or three shots and you have a deal," she countered.

A small chuckle escaped him. "Hold still for me so I can get this done quickly and I'll join you."

"Really?" She asked, as her heart skipped a few beats. "You'll drink with me?" He had never eaten or even drunk anything around her before.

"Yes," he replied dryly. "After returning home and having you stop my heart with fright, I could use a good drink or two."

He went straight to work on her back then, as if he were paying her back for any pain she might have caused him.

The numbing medicine did work to some degree, but the ordeal was still very painful and Evey found herself biting her lip to keep from crying out. Fortunately, V was true to his word; he worked very quickly.

"There, all finished," he assured her as he applied a fresh bandage.

With a deep exhalation of the breath she had been holding, Evey's body sagged, only to start shaking uncontrollably from reaction and fever.

V tucked his robe around her, patted her back and then went about cleaning up the supplies he had used. After a quick visit to the kitchen her returned with the teas tray. This time it held a bottle of Scotch and two shot glasses, a small plate with lemon wedges, a bowl of ice cubes, a large drinking glass and a pitcher of water.

"What's all this for?" she asked, as she sat up. Was he really was so fussy as to think she would want to water down his good liquor?

"The rest of this is for when I tuck you in bed," he explained. "You may want some water in the night and I wouldn't want you getting out of your warm bed with that fever of yours."

"You always seem prepared for any contingency."

He mask dipped and she realized he was staring at the floor. "If it is any consolation to you, I certainly was never prepared for you to enter my life." He looked at her then. "You're the one variable in my world that I can neither predict nor control."

She suddenly felt shy and blushed under his scrutiny. "Is that a bad thing? Have I been nothing but trouble?" she teased.

"No, my dear," he sighed. "It is a good thing. A very good thing indeed." He took her hand then and she noted that his black gloves were back in place. "And yes, you have been a bit of trouble, but I've relished every moment of it"

Giving her hand a quick squeeze, he released it and filled the shot glasses.

Passing her one, he raise his own. "Here's to the unforeseeable,"he toasted.

"...And the unseen," she added.

Time seemed to stop for a moment as they stared at each other.

**Next: Of Hope and Heartbreak continues.**


	4. Of Hope and Heartbreak cont

**Like Light and Cloud Shadow **  
A "V for Vendetta" short story by Tina Price.

**Preview:** V's life was forever changed the night he brought an unconscious Evey Hammond down to his home. Little had he realized that they would ultimately change each other's life... for the better.

**Disclaimer: **V for Vendetta and all characters therein are the property of Warner Brothers Entertainment Company and DC Comics.

**Authors note:** This story is rated R. Criticism and advice are always appreciated!

* * *

**Chapter Four: Of hope and Heartbreak (continued)**

They stared at each other over their shot glasses, as time seemed to stop. Then he turned away from her for a moment, upending both his mask and the shot. When he turned back, she stopped staring at him and likewise downed her scotch.

"Ahhh..." he sighed. "I had forgotten just how good this particular bottle was."

She nodded. "I'm feeling warmer already." Then, she put down the shot glass, her eyes never leaving his mask. "So, are you going to ask me or not?"

He felt a sudden trepidation over her meaning and quickly moved to pour them more scotch. "Ask you what?" he finally asked.

"Don't you want to know what I was doing in that phony detainment center of yours?"

"What makes you think it's phony?" He kept his voice even, reasonable but knew that he was getting into dangerous territory with her. Still, he was past the point of lying to her.

"Are you telling me that you've actually tortured people in there?" she sounded horrified.

He merely nodded.

"Bloody hell!" She downed another shot and then coughed as it went down the wrong way.

"Evey, you have to understand," he explained as he thumped her back for her, "There are those in positions of power in this government who actually enjoy abusing and killing people everyday. But worse yet are those who work for them, who know what they do and yet remain silent. They are the worst dregs of this society. On occasion in the past I've had no alternative than to interrogate these so-called human-beings to that I could obtain the information I needed for my plan."

"So you've tortured people in there." The look she gave him was one of disgust.

It made him feel ill to see her regarding him in such a way, but he was determined to see this through. He again upended a shot and then faced her.

"I'm sorry if you're offended by this. I daresay that some of the people who have seen the inside of my detainment cells were probably responsible for your parents' arrest or even their deaths."

Her eyes widened in shock and he reached out to refill her glass as he let his words sink in.

"Now tell me, Evey, what were you doing in the detainment center?" he finally asked, handed her the scotch and changing the subject

She seemed to regain her poise and settled back deeper into the cushions. At least she no longer seemed repulsed by him. "Actually, I was trying to figure out where you slept.".

He was completely surprised and a few seconds ticked by before he managed to reply, "Bored were we? Why ever should you care where I sleep?"

She flushed. "You sound miffed."

"When have I ever been 'miffed' at you? Although, to be honest, I am upset that your curiosity has led you to hurt yourself." With a sigh, he pulled off his boots, threw himself into the opposite corner of the sofa and lifted one bent leg up onto its cushions. "And here I thought that you went in there to confront what happened to you, to exorcise your demons, so to speak."

Evey ran her eyes over his legs, then flushed a deeper crimson as she realized he was watching her. "I did BEGIN to come to terms with what you did to me there," she protested. "but, it will be a while, if ever, before I can say that I've made peace with it."

They both fell silent for a time.

He was thinking of how best to continue the subject of her false imprisonment when she shifted slightly, her foot contacting his own beneath the hem of the robe he had lent her. He felt a jolt of excitement at that small contact. Had she done it intentionally?

"V, may I ask you something?" Her words were somewhat thick, her eyelids growing heavy.

"Anything," he replied, straightening somewhat to show his interest.

"First, let me say that where you sleep is of interest to me because I am the one responsible for usurping your bed," she explained. "Now please tell me, why do you sleep in that awful place? Why would you want to revisit so dreadful a time in your life?"

How best to explain this to her without hurting her? Putting his foot back on the floor, he scooted across the sofa so that he was seated beside her. Then, hesitantly, as though doubting whether he should be this close to her, he took her hands in his own.

"Evey, one stone floor in this place is just as cold as another. We humans are creatures of habit. We feel more comfortable with things we know. I suppose that may be in part why I first chose that particular room to bed down in. I chose to go on sleeping in there because it reminded me of my purpose – of why I have toiled so hard these past twenty years." He sighed and squeezed her hands. "Truth be told, I feel that I'm in danger of losing sight of that goal, and Evey... that is the one thing I cannot do."

She stared up at him, comprehension visible in her expression.

If he were a normal man, he would have kissed her then, he realized sadly. Instead, he took in her posture, the way she slumped against him and realized she was exhausted.

"It's very late and I dare say that you're tired," he stated. "Are you feeling any better?"

"Much, thank-you," she nodded. "My shoulder has stopped pounding and I actually feel warm."

Standing up, he pulled her to her feet. "Right then, off you go."

As she stood, she swayed slightly. Whether from fatigue or drink or a combination of both, he couldn't say. Almost without realizing he as going to do it, he scooped her up in his arms.

"V! What are you doing?" she gasped. "You don't need to carry me."

"I thought it was obvious; I'm taking you to bed," he answered, blushing as he realized what he had just said. To cover up the awkwardness of the moment he immediately headed off towards her chamber.

Evey offered no further protest and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, all the while studying him intently.

He wondered what she might be thinking. He himself was indulging in a brief fantasy; imagining that he was indeed 'taking her to bed'. How wonderful it would be to die, at last having the memory of so sweet a moment!

As he entered her room and prepared to release her, he again reminded himself that he was not meant for such love, such sweetness. Everything that he was, was destined to end the night he fulfill his one purpose in this life. Then, and only then would he finally rest.

Even if Evey came to love him, how could he allow it? How could he give himself over to her and then tell her that he would be taken from her in a few short months?

Sighing inwardly, he pulled back the covers and placed her in the bed. As she removed his robe her nightgown was snared by the material and hiked up over one smooth thigh.

He thought again about the strangeness of human nature: that the unintentional baring of so little could excite him so much more than the forced viewing of her entire unclothed body.

Quickly he accepted the proffered robe and he tucked her under the covers, one hand lingering on her shoulder. "Good night, Evey," he said, with a small bow, intending to leave the room as quickly as possible.

She caught his hand. "Wait."

"Yes?"

"You're not going to spend the night... there, are you?"

"No. Actually I was going to remain out on the sofa in case your shoulder gets worse during the night. You'll let me know right away if that happens?"

Her eyes softened. "You could stay here," she offered. "There's plenty of room for both of us."

Her offer was like an arrow piercing him. Was she innocently offering to share the bed, or was she hoping that it would lead to more? He knew what he most fervently wished to reply, but also that he would do the right thing.

"That is an offer that most men could not refuse," he whispered, running the back of a gloved hand across her cheek. "but I'm afraid that as a gentleman, I must. You're ill and you've had a bit to drink. In good conscience I cannot accept your most generous offer."

She pouted, then smiled to show him she was acting. "Alright. Sleep well then."

Again he made a small bow, then turned out the light and exited the room, leaving the door open a crack behind him.

Returning to the sofa, he partook of some more scotch and then settled down with the robe as a blanket.

His body was weary from three days toil in the tube, but his mind was active as always. Since Larkhill, he rarely slept more than a few hours in any given day.

He doubted he would get even that much sleep this night.

* * *

Evey awoke from a vivid nightmare to find that it was still continuing. Strong hands gripped her own as she fought, kicking and screaming.

"Evey! Evey!"

With a start, she finally realized that she was awake, that V was gripping her arms and calling her name.

As soon as she stopped fighting, he released her hands and with a tremulous moan, she threw her arms around him, shaking with reaction.

"Hush now," he soothed, holding onto her and rubbing her back. "it was only a dream."

Only a dream... If only he knew that her nightmare had been about him, about him suddenly metamorphosing right before her eyes into a monster who flogging her, tortured her... In her dream she had pleaded with him, begged him not to do it, but he had simply continued on as though he couldn't hear her.

She took some deep breaths and after a time calmed herself. After all, here he was, the V she knew, holding her and comforting her as she had wished him to in the dream.

Slowly, she straightened up and pushed away from him.

"I'm alright now."

"Are you certain?" He asked, still sounding concerned.

She nodded. "It was a recurrent nightmare. I'll be fine."

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

She stared up at the darkened eyes of the mask and tried to recall the true eyes that hid behind them. How could she tell him that he was the cause of her pain and that only he could end it?

"Not right now," she finally replied.

He studied her a moment and then rose and poured her a glass a water from the tray he had delivered while she slept. "Lemon?" he asked, then plopped a wedge in when she nodded.

She took the glass gratefully and quickly downed its entire contents. She had been very thirsty. "Thank-you," she said, handing the empty glass back to him.

He refilled it before setting it back on the tray. "Once again I bid you goodnight," was all he said, as he bowed, turned out the lights and swept from the room.

After a time, she heard him settling down on the couch, then all was quiet.

...maddeningly quiet.

Time slowly ticked by as she tossed and turned and sleep continued to elude her. Out in the Shadow Gallery she even heard V snort once, then sigh and become still again, apparently sound asleep.

After what seemed to be an eternity, but which her bedside clock said had been only 41 minutes, she gave up and padded out of her room. Perhaps a book to read...

Although she literally had thousands in her own room, she decided to go in search of the one V had recently been reading. She paused in her search as she passed close by the sofa.

...And there he was, stretched out on his back, one arm dangling so that his fingers brushed the floor, while his other hand lay atop the book she searched for, which was upon his chest.

So much for reading that, she thought.

As she turned away, intent on returning to her room, he stirred, then spoke, his voice groggy.

"Evey? Are you STILL awake?"

"Sorry," she mumbled. "I was just wandering about. I didn't mean to wake you."

He sat up and scratched his head through the wig. "Don't trouble yourself over it," he yawned. "I was only dozing." Then his mask swiveled around to better see her. "I do wish you would come sit down and tell me what this is all about."

When she hesitated, he patted the cushion next to him. "Please, I insist. Let's get to the bottom of this and get it over with."

With a heartfelt sigh and feeling as though she were approaching the hangman, she complied.

He threw an arm around her and squeezed her shoulder in a fatherly fashion. "Now then," he began. "I know that I was the cause of your nightmare..."

At her shocked look, he explained, "You were yelling aloud for me to 'stop'. Given that, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that I'm the problem. This is about my 'setting you free', isn't it?"

She shook her head. "No, this is about you torturing me," she corrected. "V, how could you do such a thing? Do I really mean so little to you that you could do that to me?"

He froze, his hand stilling on her shoulder, then the mask tipped down to stare at her. "Quite the contrary," he replied.

"I don't understand."

"I don't think that I can even begin to make you understand what it cost me to hurt you like that," he explained. "I did try once before to tell you, then thought better of it. I knew you weren't ready to listen..."

"What it cost YOU?" she cut him off, feeling an anger rising up in her the likes of which she had never known. She shoved him and then scooted away. "WHAT IT COST YOU!"

"Evey, please..."

But she'd jumped to her feet and was rounding on him, "How dare you sit there and tell me how it hurt you! You beat me! You burned me with cigarettes! You kept me from sleeping! You made me wet and soil myself by binding me and leaving me on the floor for a full day!"

V shrank back and flinched with each accusation, yet refuse to look away from her or deny them.

"You stripped me... "

"V, you humiliated me sexually in the shower room," her voice began to tremble as she fought not to cry.

The mask turned away from her then and stared down at the floor.

"Are you going to tell me THAT hurt you?" she accused. "Are you going to tell me that you didn't _enjoy_ that?"

His mask swiftly returned to her face. "Evey, no!" he protested, but again she interrupted him.

"Don't you dare lie to me!" she continued. "Don't you dare tell me that you didn't want to see me naked, that you didn't enjoy tearing my clothes off or using that power washer on me... scouring me until my skin was raw and I was screaming.."

"Please don't..." he pleaded, his hands clenching into fists atop his legs.

She was crying openly now, but managed to choke out the rest; "As I hung there in pain, you dialed down the spray and used it on my privates, forcing me to climax and then making cruel jokes about how you could always tell which ones were whores..."

Tears rolled down her cheeks as the pain she had been holding inside was finally out in the open.

V reached out to her, but she stepped back a pace and shook her head.

"Go ahead," she taunted. "Explain to me why you had to carry it that far. Tell me that it hurt you to do it..." here she hissed, "...tell me you didn't stand there with an aching hard-on the entire time."

He came to his feet so suddenly that she jumped.

He cried out and in a blur of motion, grasped the bottle of scotch off the coffee table and lobbed it the entire length of the Gallery. Then he was moving, even as the bottle exploded against the far wall, destroying several pictures in the bargain.

She looked around, stunned to see that he had disappeared from view.

Somewhere in the gallery a heavy door slammed shut.

"V?"

Realizing that she may have gone too far, that she might have severely damaged their relationship, Evey sank to the floor and sobbed as though her heart were breaking.

Equal measures of pain, fear, regret and even, strangely enough, relief filled her.

Truthfully, she was deeply troubled by his reaction to her accusations. She never would have imagined the usually reserved, cool man she had come to know having such a passionate fit. He had always seemed so in control, so poised, so civilized around her...

...Still, she had gotten her pound of flesh back from him and felt better for it. Let him suffer for a time. She had little doubt that he would eventually understand why she had to do this once he thought things through.

Drying her eyes, she stood up, snatched his book off the coffee table where he had left it and went back to bed.

* * *

Hours later, Evey was startled awake by the sound of an incredible din. Good God! Was the Gallery falling down about her?

She sat bold upright and listened, trying to make out what was happening as her heart hammering wildly in her chest.

Another loud boom echoed through the place, followed by a loud crash and some miscellaneous cursing.

"V?"

She glanced at the clock and saw that it was nearly six in the morning. She had been asleep a few hours.

Was he still THAT upset and what precisely was he doing?

She rose from her bed and made her way out into the Gallery itself. If she wasn't mistaken, he had retreated back to the detainment facility when he'd run off earlier that morning, so that is where she headed.

As she reached the heavy wooden door, another loud boom reverberated from the other side, again followed by a crash and some shouting, although she could not make out what he was saying.

It was as she went to open the door that she was surprised to discover it locked. With her hand placed upon it, she could feel as well as hear the thudding of rhythmic pounding. It went on for some minutes and was then followed by the same kind of boom and crash that had awakened her.

She lifted her hand as if to knock and then paused, torn between knocking and the conviction that he probably wouldn't answer, even if he did hear her. Her hand lowered. It would probably be best to let him exorcise his demons. When he was ready he would seek her out. If not then she would wait for the right opportunity to seek him out. In the meanwhile, she really didn't see this as something to be concerned with... or so she tried to convince herself.

Looking for some way in which to pass the time while taking her mind off the din he was making, she decided to cook breakfast.

The cacophony continued unabated as Evey finally gave up trying to eat a full hour later. She had already cleaned up the dishes and saved him a plate, but had lost her own appetite from worry.

Perhaps a nice shower to take her mind off the situation...

* * *

Six hours later two separate dishes sat wrapped upon the kitchen table: breakfast and lunch. Evey had cleaned or dusted most of the objects in the gallery and now sat upon the sofa with the TV volume turned up as loudly as she could bear it. Her nerves were shot and her conscience weighed heavily upon her.

She was beginning to think that she could take it no longer, that she would have to break down that door and make him stop, when, with a final crash, the noise suddenly came to an end.

She turned off the television, barely able to believe it, but there it was; blessed silence.

Would he come out now?

She stood up and as she turned, he appeared directly in front of her. The hair at the base of her neck stood on end at the silent, unnatural way in which he conjured himself and she wondered yet again if he were human at all.

For a moment they stared at each other in silence.

Evey noticed that he was filthy, his wig, mask and clothes coated with gray dust.

"V.. Please let me apologize..." she began.

He held up a hand and she could see that his glove was torn and bloody. "Please don't..." he interrupted her. "Evey, I have a few things to say to you and I want you to just let me get through it."

She nodded.

"The first thing you need to know is that I cannot and will not apologize for those things I have done in pursuit of justice. This is who I am. Justice is my very reason for living. I cannot ask you to accept who I am or even what I am, but I hope that you can accept the truth of what I have just told you."

Before she could speak, he again held up his hand.

"I understand your anger over the way I..." he seemed to almost choke, then continued, "treated you."

"I acted only from the deepest conviction that what I did would finally bring you the peace, the strength of mind and will you said you wished you had."

"My dear, you leveled some dire accusations at me. You accused me of torturing you sexually for my own pleasure..." Here he broke off and seemed to have trouble remaining in control of himself. She noticed that he seemed to be shaking, though from a feeling of deep personal insult or shame, she couldn't say.

With a sigh, he began pacing. "Evey, you have to understand that torture such as I endured, as I then turned upon you, is dependent upon completely dehumanizing the victim. A major component of this involves removing all choice from them, of making them understand that they belong to you, that you decide when they eat, when they sleep, when they relieve themselves. You make them understand that you OWN them."

He stopped pacing and stared down at her. "And the best way to drive this point home, is..."

"Rape," she finished.

He nodded. "Yes. If I had truly treated you as government prisoners were treated, you would have been burned with blow torches, cut, raped, mutilated... and humiliated in every way possible... continuously. You would have suffered permanent damage to both your body and your mind, and that only if you lived."

She was stunned as it finally sunk in that V had been a prisoner, that he had been tortured for real and most likely raped as well.

Just then he moved as though to place his hands on her shoulders, but then stopped himself and merely regarded her. "I could never have done that to you, Evey, so I had to find another way."

"The power spray."

He nodded, then turned his back to her. "As for your allegations that I enjoyed these treatments, that I derived a sexual thrill from them..." He sighed deeply. "I fear that you were, to some extent, correct."

"V... please, you don't have to..."

He turned to face her. "Yes I do, Evey. I need to say this for myself as well as for your sake."

He gestured at himself with both hands. "The fact is that I am still a man. I'll not go into the reasons why I was one of the very few men at Larkhill to keep his genitalia, but as little of myself as I did keep, I am very grateful indeed for it."

Again he began to pace, restlessly running his fingers over the back of the sofa, the side table, and any other objects he passed as he wandered. Evey immediately understood that he was struggling to find the right words with which to say something he found very difficult.

"It made me ill every time I mistreated you, Evey. I was sick the entire time you were my unknowing prisoner. When I starved you, I starved myself. When you ate dog food because you could no longer refuse it, then so did I. Every single night you spent sleeping on the floor of your cell, I slept on the floor of the cell next to you. And when you cried all the night long, my soul bled until I thought my heart would give out."

"So it was that much worse when my body betrayed me during those 'delousing treatments'. Evey, my body betrayed me even as yours betrayed you during those sessions. And I hated myself all the more for it, but at the same time..." He froze then, his hands clenching and unclenching by his side.

"V?" She moved to lay a hand on his arm, but he jerked away.

"I do not deserve your pity, Evey," he growled. "Don't you understand? As much as I hated myself, I also enjoyed those sessions... because..." Again he seemed to choke and he had to take a deep breath before he was steady enough to continue. "For a time, I could imagine that I wasn't tormenting you, that I was touching you with my hands, not the power washer. For a time I could dissociate my mind from the torture and pretend that I was making love to you..."

"And in the end, to my eternal shame, I am not certain that I didn't perhaps drag you into that shower room more often than I needed to."

Without another word, he turned and all but fled the room, leaving her standing there, her heart aching for him.

**Next time: Memories**


	5. Memories

**Like Light and Cloud Shadow **  
A "V for Vendetta" short story by Tina Price.

**Preview:** V's life was forever changed the night he brought an unconscious Evey Hammond down to his home. Little had he realized that they would ultimately change each other's life... for the better.

**Disclaimer: **V for Vendetta and all characters therein are the property of Warner Brothers Entertainment Company and DC Comics.

**Authors notes:** This story is **rated R**. Criticism and advice are always appreciated!

This story, reconstructed in its entirety (but as yet incomplete) is now posted on my homepage. The most recent chapters are also posted separately for those who do not wish to start at the top.

There is an** NC-17 rated version** of it also available on my homepage to those of you who are of age and not offended by graphic content.

* * *

**Chapter Five: Memories**

He stalked swiftly, silently through the dark streets, hoping to catch some fingermen abusing their authority, for he had a powerful need to lose himself in the heat of battle, to find some respite from the pain in his heart...

V took time to pause in the shadow of a doorway. His body was weary and, his hands raw from hours of mindless hard labor. No matter. He would drive himself until he was literally falling down from fatigue, and given his physical makeup that could take at least another day.

He had showered in the remains of the detainment center and changed into a clean outfit, then immediately departed the gallery.

Back in the Shadow Gallery, Evey awaited him. She had no idea what a powerful magnet she was to him... he was always drawn back to her. When she had run off to Gordan Deitrich's house, he had spent days scouring London for her, checking on every possible acquaintance she might have sought out. Once he had finally located her, he had made it a point to checked on her several times a day.

At the time he thought he was watching out for her, but now...

He sighed softly, gripped by both the need to be in her presence and the fear that, upon his return, he would find that she still despised him.

From somewhere down the street there came a yell followed by mean-spirited laughter..

He was instantly in motion.

These days, at this time of night, where there was a disturbance, there were fingermen.

Under his mask he grinned unpleasantly.

* * *

Evey spent the rest of the night out in the Shadow Gallery hoping that V would make an appearance. If only he would, she knew that she could put him at ease and that they would once again be on the best of terms. In fact, she felt that they would be on better terms, having finally shared so much of themselves. Or was that the problem? 

Did V regret having let her know about his incarceration? It wasn't as though she knew more than the most obvious. She didn't know how he got his burns, or why he wore the mask... Were those related to the torture he suffered?

She blanched as she remembered his words: "If I had truly treated you as government prisoners were treated, you would have been burned with blow torches, cut, raped, mutilated..."

Had they disfigured him, burnt him?

She shuddered to think of surviving such brutality.

And if that was the case, she wouldn't be surprised if he never wanted to discuss it with her.

Her stomach reminded her that it was growing late, so she spent the next hour cooking. It was strange, really; she wasn't a great cook, she rarely even bothered preparing anything that didn't come directly out of a package, but in these past weeks with V she had developed a desire to learn.

No matter how busy he was, he always set aside plenty of time to cook.

She would watch him and even help by cutting and slicing as he asked her to. Then one evening, when he had decided to prepare a Peking duck of all things, she had asked him why he spent so much time and effort cooking.

"My Dear," he had replied, "Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all. Harriet Van Home."

She had found herself laughing. "Is that your motivation, then?"

He had laughed. "Not buying it? Well, then, would you believe that over the years, I've had plenty of time to kill and that I find cooking to be a form of art? And now that I have your fine company, it gives me great delight to be able to impress you with what I have learned."

She had snorted. "And impress me you have, but I think I did like your first explanation better."

Evey smiled as she remembered the way he had paused when she said that, as though trying to understand exactly what she meant by it.

It was a fond memory and since that night, she had helped him to prepare each evening meal. It had quickly become a wonderful habit and they had shared many pleasant hours interacting while they cooked.

Her stomach rumbled, reminding her of her intentions, so she began rummaging through the kitchen as she tried to decide what to prepare. It saddened her to think that yet again she would be cooking alone.

It made her miss him all the more.

It was only after she had cleaned up after dinner, that Evey's curiosity got the better of her. What exactly had V been doing in the detainment center that had made so much noise? With a mental shrug she decided to find out, after all, the worse that could happen was that the door was still locked.

She found it to be unbarred.

Pushing the heavy wood, she swung it open and stepped forward, then froze in amazement.

The place she had always called the detainment center was gone! It was completely obliterated!

Around her were the soaring familiar arches of yet more of the Shadow Gallery and scattered everywhere were the remains of the false prison. Plaster lay in chunks over mangled sections of wood framed walls. Stone veneer and tile shards were scattered everywhere while electrical cables, steel sheets and even water pipes were neatly laid on the outskirts of the ruin. Overhead, steal supports spanned the width of the area. They must have supported the utilities and were the only thing not yet removed.

A fine gray dusting of plaster coated everything, making it obvious why V had been so filthy the last time she saw him.

Gingerly, feeling somewhat dazed, she stepped forward and navigated her way over the rubble. She picked her way through it while taking it all in. It was unbelievable that he had destroyed the entire thing in just hours!

She found a very large sledge near the drain in the false floor of what had been the shower room. The handle was smeared with his blood.

His gloves had been torn...

V had toiled non-stop at this until it was finished, tearing up his hands in the process. What he had accomplished, several men could not do in twice the time.

Was he exhausted? Was he sore?

Somehow she didn't think so.

It all just brought it home to her again: V was no mere human.

He was much more, and in many ways much less.

Obviously, he could not bear this place any longer. She guessed that, to him, it now only represented what he had done to her and so he had destroyed it.

She returned to the gallery proper, prepared to wait up for him.

Evey awoke from a restless sleep and squinted at her bedside clock, which showed the time as two in the morning. With a groan, she swung her legs out of the bed and padded out to the gallery.

A quick search caused her heart to sink. He still had not returned.

She had waited up for him until nearly midnight and then given in to her body's need for sleep. Yet she hadn't slept well, her dreams filled with nightmares in which he met some murky, grisly end on the streets of London and lay, a John Doe, somewhere she would never find him or know his fate.

The sadness from those half-remembered dreams and the events of the last few days put her in a depressed state. She looked around her and imagined this place without him.

All the joy of it would be gone, the treasures it contained would never come close to replacing the energy and quirky charm of the man who had rescued them. He was the biggest treasure in this place, in all of London. For wasn't he the only man brave enough, strong enough and genius enough to rouse the sedate populous and set them against this vile dictatorship?

'Evey, you're a fool,' she thought to herself. He is the most important person in London because you love him.

She couldn't stay here any longer. The thought took hold of her. Every moment with him would just make the inevitable that much unbearable. She should leave now.

Yes, she should leave now, before he returned, before they could reconnect in a way which was even stronger. She felt it inside her, the sudden conviction that all but the last barriers between them had fallen, that they had been bound together by their last confrontation, not divided by it.

All it would take to seal that bond forever would be one more meeting, and then...

In something close to a panic, she went to gather her things.

* * *

Placing both hands on the small of his back, V stretched and indulged in a groan. Not a bad night, if he said so himself: six fingermen lay in the streets this night either disabled or dead and no less than three citizens had been spared their cruel machinations. 

In the distance he heard Big Ben chime. It was growing late, well past two in the morning. By now Evey would be fast asleep. He could return, clean up, eat and get some rest before he had to face her.

It took him a good thirty minutes to work his way back to the entrance to his lair. It wasn't that he took any special precautions to avoid the fingermen; heavens no, he welcomed them to try to stop him! It was only that he needed to be careful lest he unwittingly reveal his home's entranceway to some onlooker or camera. And so he paused a block away and waited in the shadows, his keen eyes scanning for any possible complications.

His cloak whipped about him as the wind picked up. Heavy clouds had been rolling in and the breeze was a good indication that it shortly would begin to rain. His mind made a sudden association and he was again watching a naked woman walk into the rain.

She was a woman reborn. She was hope. She was both his light and cloud shadow...

She was his equal:

Evey, reborn and baptized by God, who was in the rain.

The first drops thumped upon his hat and shoulders, breaking him away from his thoughts. The coast was clear, it was time to move.

In a swirl of black, he kept to the shadows and entered the passageway that would take him home.

It was sometime later, after a delightful shower and change of clothes, that he found the note.

It sat upon the kitchen table and was scrawled in a neat, but bold script:

**V,**

**I've prepared your dinner.**

**It's in the fridge.**

**Enjoy!**

**-E**

**PS- I hope that you are well.**

Walking to the fridge, he opened it and withdrew the carefully wrapped plate.

On it sat the best looking shepherd's pie he had ever seen. The meal was is favorite, yet one they had never prepared together.

She had asked him once what his favorite meal was and he had answered. When she had asked the inevitable question as to why he never prepared it, he had honestly told her that it was the one meal he couldn't seem to get quite right. Something had always gone wrong when he attempted it.

Oh, how she had laughed when he had related the long list of misfortunes; a stove fire, botched crust, the time the old oven had died half way through cooking it, bad potatoes, of all things...

It had been quite a remarkable list and as he had explained, there came a time when even he knew to take the high road and abandon a lost cause.

And now, here it was; she had produced one for him and he not even there to help.

...although, given his track record with this meal, that was most likely for the best.

She had baked it in a ceramic pie plate, and so he was able to pop it in the microwave. Although a heating in the oven would have done it the greatest justice, he didn't think he could wait that long before tasting it.

He found himself pacing impatiently until finally, with a "ding" the meal was ready. He placed it upon the counter, and turning his back to the gallery, lest she suddenly appear, he moved his mask aside and lifted a forkful to his mouth.

It was perfect.

She had succeeded spectacularly where her culinary instructor always failed. There seemed to be some sort of lesson in there somewhere...

No matter, he was deeply touched that she had done this for him.

Forcing himself to relinquish his fork, he moved off to her bedroom door, intent on checking up on her. He wanted to see her, even if she were sleeping. Somehow this meal demanded some immediate acknowledgment from him.

As quietly as possible, he pushed the door open, but the dim light from the gallery was enough to make it painfully clear that she wasn't there.

A sudden fear gripped him and he entered the room and turned on the lamp. A quick scan revealed the worst: all her things were missing along with her knapsack.

She had left him.

For a moment he stood rooted in place, shock at such an unexpected event robbing him of the ability to think.

And then only one thought occurred to him: he had to find her. Whether she returned or not, he had to set things right between them. It would be enough or it wouldn't, but the point was that it was something he HAD to do.

Turning, he headed for the exit as his mind flew through possible routes she might have taken, but as he was about to pass the lift, he stopped suddenly.

She was on the balcony. He didn't know how he knew for certain, only that he felt a deep seated conviction that he was right – she was up there in the rain.

The ride up seemed to take far longer than he remembered and he found himself fidgeting with a nervous energy while he waited for the door to open.

Finally, it arrived and he exited the lift, made a the short trip down the corridor and then came to a sudden halt as he noticed that the doors to the balcony were open. Relief blossomed within him. Who else could it be but she? Trying to damp down his anticipation lest he be proved wrong, he moved closer to the doors...

...and sighed with relief at the sight of her knapsack lying in the shelter of the doorway.

She was here. Of course she was. He had known it. He was as unsurprised in the end as he had been the day he learned her name. Still, an unfamiliar mix of emotions washed over him as he stepped outside.

It was raining, as he had known it would be.

She stood, looking up to the heavens as the heavy rain soaked her and so entranced was she, that she never noticed as he moved to stand behind her.

"Evey?"

She turned to look at him, and he knew that she was no more surprised to see him than he had been to see her a moment ago. She nodded at him by way of greeting, "V."

They stared at each other for a long silent moment as the rain pelting them, curtaining them, it seemed, from all the rest of the world.

Unexpectedly, she reached out to him and without thinking he took her hand, squeezing it gently.

And suddenly he had a moment of such utter clarity that it seemed as though the past, present and future had suddenly caught up with him. It felt like a dizzying whirlwind in his head and she, Evey, stood at the center of it.

Everything that had happened to him had guaranteed that he would find her. She had become his conscience, his compassion... more than that, she kept him human.

With a shock it occurred to him that in that moment they touched, she was already his, and he hers. It was a basic truth, whether or not either of them ever admitted to it. Even if she left him, he knew that some part of her would always be with him.

It shook him to his core.

Tearing his gaze away from her face, he moved past her to the railing, and leaning on it, looked out upon the city. He willed his hands not to shake, and himself to become the cool, disconnected and distant man he had been just a few short months ago.

And realized that was impossible, he wasn't that person anymore. His connection to her had brought him back into the world he had hoped to shape and then leave.

"Are you alright, V?" she asked tentatively as she watched him.

Was that concern in her voice or confusion over the events of the last two days?

He nodded, but didn't turn around. "Evey, please don't leave, not like this, not now that we have both been so honest with each other. If I've avoided you this last day, it was not because I was angry at you. If anything, it was because of the anger I feel towards myself."

"I know that," she said softly.

"I wasn't certain that you could ever forgive me," he continued. "And I just didn't know what I would do if I returned to find that you despised me."

"V, I forgave you the moment I finished confronting you. Once everything was out in the open, my anger and resentment were gone. All that remains now are some unpleasant memories and I can choose not to revisit them."

Stepping closer, she pressed herself against his back and wrapped her arms around his waist.

His breath caught at the contact. He felt humbled by her acceptance of him after everything that had happened.

"Can you forgive me?" she asked. "I judged you, condemned your actions without giving you a chance to explain yourself." She sighed. "Did your past give you the right to use such methods in pursuit of my 'freedom'? ... I don't know anymore. Some things have become so confusing, while others are crystal clear."

"What's crystal clear?" he asked sharply, looking back at her over his shoulder.

"I was wrong to have intentionally drawn your blood, despite my anger," she continued. "But now, for the first time I can accept everything you've done. I really have made my peace with it, V."

"Then there is nothing left for either of us to forgive,"he replied.

She squeezed him in agreement.

"When I saw that you had cooked me my favorite meal, I had hoped that was so," he confessed. "I don't think you can imagine how much that simple gesture meant to me."

"Cooking is like love," she began.

"It should be entered into with abandon or not at all," he finished, profoundly moved by what the quote now meant, what she meant by giving it back to him now.

"Everything has become crystal clear to me as well," he breathed.

"Pardon?"

He finally turned to face her and enfolded her in his arms. "I want you to stay. Please say you will?"

"I'll stay tonight," She replied as she searched the face of his mask for a moment. "But in return there is something I need for you to do for me.

"Anything that is in my power to grant you, I shall," he promised, fervently wishing to please her.

She smiled, then tugged on his hand. "Let's go back to the Shadow Gallery."

Without a moment's hesitation, he offered her his arm and together they headed back towards the lift.

* * *

Evey was amazed that the utter calm which had descended upon her the moment he had appeared upon the roof. She had suddenly had a deep-seated conviction that his appearance had been inevitable, that there was no escape from what she was about to do... 

Fate kept steering her back to him.

The comfort she suddenly felt around him came in part from a new-found familiarity. Had it been just a few days since that she had decided she would uncover the man hidden behind the symbol?

Her comfort with him also stemmed from the complete conviction that this was the way it was meant to turn out. Since the fateful night she had strayed outside after curfew, they had been moving towards this evening and this last understanding and acceptance of each other.

It was also the last thing required to banish their shared traumas for good.

And if she had any nervousness to speak of, as she walked with him, her arm looped through his, it was over the one unknown at this point: Would he or wouldn't he?

Either way, she knew, just as she had on the balcony, that whatever happened between them next was meant to be and would be accepted as such by both of them.

So, as they entered the gallery, she led him to her room, then pulled him inside.

He made no protest, nor did he hesitate at the door.

Turning, she reached up, removed his hat and placed it on her dresser. Then, stepping closer yet, she undid the clasp of his cloak and removed the wet garment, allowing it to drop to the floor.

It was then that he gently captured her arms and held her still, the mask dipping close to regard her.

"Evey?" he asked, his voice husky.

She nearly melted on the spot, but did not reply.

Instead, she gently freed herself from his grip, grasped the glove covering his right hand and very slowly began to slide it off him, all the while locking her eyes upon the eye slits of his mask. Again she had expected some protest and again she was surprised when he remained passive, allowing her to remove first one glove, then the other. She dropped the gloves on the floor and took his hands in her own, running her fingers over them, memorizing the scars and their texture.

All the while, he remained silent and still, his mask still fixed upon her face. Only when she placed one of his hands on her cheek and kissed the palm, did he let out a long, shuddering breath.

"It is a pity to see it" she quoted. "and a pity to see your eyes – and the scar of fire on your forehead: and the worst of it is, one is in danger of loving you too well for all this and making too much of you."

"Jane Eyre," he breathed.

She nodded. "And now I may die happy, having finally met a man who read it."

He stroked her cheek with his thumb, then moved it lower to the side of her neck, all the while stroking her skin. When he spoke, his voice was none too steady, "What is it you wish of me, Evey?"

"You," she replied, honestly. "I want you." Then she embraced him, burying her face in the wet fabric over his chest and breathing in the scent of him.

In response, his arms came up and enfolded her, holding her tightly.

She took a deep breath then and risked it all: "What I want is for you to prove something to me, V." Reaching down, she again grasped one of his hands and brought it to her face so that she could kiss his palm. "I want you to destroy the memories I have of these hands torturing me. I've seen that they can heal as well as hurt, now I want you to show me that they can bring pleasure as well as pain... that they can love as well as kill."

"I want... no... I need you to be the man rather than the symbol, this one night." Here she tilted her face up and looked straight at him. "Stay here with me, be with me..."

Despite her previous conviction that this was meant to be, she began to shake with nervous tension.

"Evey..." he began, her name little more than a sigh escaping him. "You don't realize what you are asking of me, what this could do to us..."

"Yes I do. I'm asking you to complete the path that we began the day you saved me."

He remained silent, but shifted restlessly, apparently wrestling with a decision.

She waited for him, her cheek cupped in his palm, her eyes half closed.

He captured her chin then, raising it so that she would look at him. Again she knew he was searching her eyes with his own. "I can't be a part of your future... " he warned.

"At least you've given me a future," she answered. "Now give me memories with which to fill it."

V straightened to his full height as his large, strong hands moved to her shoulders and squeezed them gently. "If this is my punishment for my past cruelty to you, then I fear that I shall not, in the end be the least bit sorry." It was an attempt at humor, but a bittersweet for all that.

She had a hard time remaining composed when she realized that he was saying yes. Instead she settled on a smirk and warned, "I wouldn't be so sure of that. It may take you all night to do your penance."

His masked face nodded almost solemnly. "You can rest assured that in that case I shall take this very seriously." His voice had dropped down into a lower register, making her again breakout in goosebumps. "When I'm done, you'll have no doubts as to the sincerity of my contrition."

Evey trembled harder, as she was hit with a sudden rush of desire. Had she really just brazenly propositioned this man, this enigma whose very presence in a room left her feeling like a giddy virgin? And had he truly, just now made so erotic a promise? What must he be thinking of her right now?

But then, as he reached out to again brush her cheek, she saw that his hand was shaking.

It was then that she knew that despite his bravado, that he was just as nervous, just as unsure of what they were about to do as she was. And why wouldn't he be? If it was true that he had no memories of his life before Larkhill, then he likely could not remember a time when he might have loved.

The unexpected thought made her unreasonably sad despite the circumstances.

Then warm hands pulled her closer against him. "My dear, what is it?" he asked, concern evident in his tone. "If you're having second thoughts..."

"Never," she denied, shaking her head. "I was merely reflecting on just how much has been taken from you; even your memories of love... It is too cruel!"

The mask looked down as a deep sigh escaped him. "Don't concern yourself with it Evey. I don't anymore. I am merely who I am, which is the sum total of those memories I do have. Up until I met you they were, for the most part, unpleasant, but here you are... daring to care about me despite it all. My memories of you are the ones that warm me, that keep me human, that make me question myself and my actions. Dearest one, I am in constant amazement over it, for whatever can I have done to deserve such care from you?"

A tear rolled down her cheek at the honor he paid her, at his gratitude to her and she found herself replying with nothing but the truth, "You saved me, V, in so many ways... and I've come to realize that I only ever feel whole when you're with me, because..."

"Evey?" he breathed, taking her hands and holding them tightly.

She tried to finish it, but in the end she couldn't. For now, she had to hold something back. What would be the use in making a pledge of love to a man who would be dead in less than a year, a man who didn't want you interfering with his destiny?

Finally picking up on her refusal to continue, he hugging her carefully. "Evey, you ARE Mercedes to my Count," he sighed. "And tonight, at least, we will be together in our tree."

She was amazed that he had so accurately summed up her sudden silence and tilted her head up to see that he was watching her. The mask nodded slightly, assuring her that he meant what he had said.

It was enough to fuel her with a sudden boldness. Reaching up, she began to unzip his jacket, slowly at first, but then more quickly as he gave no protest. Stepping back she pushed it over his shoulders, pulled it off and then lay the sodden garment atop his cloak and gloves.

The shirt revealed beneath was of gray silk and she blushed slightly as it brought to mind the silk boxers she had discovered just a few days ago. Before her flaming face could betray her, she was back in his arms, gently rubbing her cheek like a cat against that soft fabric. It was heavenly to feel it against her skin and to also feel the hard smoothness of his chest through the thin material.

"I take it that you like my shirt?" His voice was none too steady, despite his attempt at humor.

"I like what it covers," she purred.

"I'm afraid that the flesh beneath is not so pleasing," he warned, suddenly tense.

She looked up at him and began to unbutton the garment in question. "I'll be the judge of that. You should know by now that it isn't the shirt that I so adore."

Still he watched her while his body remained stiff. Only when she had reached the forth button and the shirt began to part, did he move.

His lightening fast reflexes still amazed her, for before she could even comprehend what he was doing, both her hands were trapped between his own.

"Wait, Evey..." he gasped, finally releasing the breath he had been holding.

She remained passive and silent, patiently waiting him out.

"Let's move away from the lamp," He continued, leading her to the bed and sitting down with her by his side. "It is far too tempting for me to have it within reach."

A sudden rush of understanding nearly overwhelmed her as she realized that he had won a battle with himself, that despite his deeply rooted fear that she would be repulsed by what she saw, he was refusing, at least for now, the cover darkness provided. True, he did make certain that the lamp was to his back, so that his chest would have some cover from direct light...

"V..." she murmured, "If you had any clue just how much I admire and want the man who lives within this flesh, all thought of hiding from me would vanish from your mind."

"Ah, but if you knew how many times I've had people scream at the sight of me, you would realize how very difficult I find this," he ground out, tension still evident in every part of him.

Her sudden anger that anyone would treat him so gave her courage. Instantly she stood and shoving him back onto the bed, straddled him.

"Your wrapping paper may not be as fancy as some others" she husked. "but the gift you keep inside is everything that I could ever want. I don't care how it is wrapped."

"Evey..." His hands came up to grasp her own. "I do not doubt that you believe that, but you have to realize that sometimes reality is far more than we at first imagine we can handle."

"Then you're going to have to trust me enough to see what I can and cannot handle."

"It is an easy thing for one whose foot is on the outside of calamity to give advice and to rebuke the sufferer," he quoted.

"In misery it is great comfort to have a companion," she quoted back. Then seeing that she had got the last work, she gently placed his hands on her hips. Slowly, in a teasing manner, she undid five buttons of her own shirt and parted the material slightly by thrusting back her shoulders. "A button for a button, a view for a view, a feel for a feel?" she bargained.

The Guy Fawkes mask nodded and the man wearing it groaned, "Now that is taking unfair advantage of a man, Evey." Without further adieu he undid two more of his own buttons.

She followed suit.

Then he surprised her by reaching out and unbuttoning the rest of her shirt.

With great anticipation she returned the favor, but before she could part the material, he heaved beneath her. There was a sudden dizzying sense of motion which tore a squeal from her. When she realized what was going on, she found herself wrapped around him as he approached the door.

Once again she felt herself aching for that raw power and grace to take possession of her, and then idly wondered what was he doing.

V closed the door, leaving it only slightly ajar, then backtracked to the lamp, which he put out. "Now then," he breathed near her ear, "let's see what you can and cannot handle."

In the next instant she was on the bed with him straddling her, their positions effective reversed. In the darkness of the room she could see very little.

As though reading her thoughts, he spoke, "As your eyes adjust to the dark, you will gradually see a bit more of me. It seems to be the best solution to the situation."

She could only nod, her ability to speak coherently already failing her at the feel of him atop her.

Apparently his night vision was better than hers, for he seemed to see her nod. He surprised her then by pulling his shirttails from his britches, shrugging off his shirt and tossing it to the floor behind him.

In the dim light from the doorway, she could see this and yet very little detail. His skin was as yet hidden from her. Oh to touch him!

As she reached up to do so, he grasped her sleeves and stripped her of her shirt, tossing it down beside his own.

Then her heart nearly stopped, as without any preamble, he reached up and removed his mask whilst leaving the wig in place. There was a soft clunk as he gently dropped it to the floor. "I trust you'll allow me, for now, a modicum of vanity?" he asked.

Again, she could only nod. Desperate to make out his features, she searched the darkness where his face was hidden, yet all she could make out was his outline in the light of the doorway.

And then the chance was lost, as he straightened his legs and came down beside her, his face nuzzling her neck, his left arm draped over her while his hand caressed her face.

"Oh my dearest," he whispered as he leaned against her and kissed her neck beneath her ear. "...my Evey." Without the mask to muffle it, his voice, it was even richer.

She moaned at the feel of his bare skin sliding against her own, his lips upon her at last and threw her arms up around him, embracing him, welcoming him. At last she was able to run her hands over him, over his neck, his shoulders, his back... and what she found was a patchwork of sorts.

There were areas of his body that were as scarred as his hands, the skin too thin, too tough to be anything other than burn scars. But there were also areas that seemed to be undamaged. The flesh on the sides of his torso, beneath his arms and at the small of his back were covered in smooth and resilient healthy skin.

He stilled and then groaned as she explored those areas. "If I dream I have you, I have you, for all our joys are but fantastical." he husked, then finally captured her lips with his own in a kiss that took her breath away.

It was electrifying, earth shattering, enlightening...

The passion and feeling in that one kiss destroyed all memories she carried of any other man. From that moment, she knew it would be him, always.

When he came up for air, all they could do was stare at each other in amazement. Or at least, she tried to stare at him, for his face was still hidden in shadow, for he still had his back towards the door.

She reached up and took his face in her hands, merely cupping his cheeks and jawline and pulling him back to her. It was enough for her to feel the burn scars beneath her hands while still leaving him some anonymity.

He kissed her again and this time the kiss was gentle, more drawn out, teasing even, as he took his time in exploring her lips.

"Evey..." another sigh as he moved his mouth down her neck and over her collarbones. Then he was reaching beneath her to undo her bra.

She shivered as cool air hit her hot flesh, then gasped as his mouth took in one nipple, then the other. The feel of his hot, wet mouth on her cool flesh was exquisite, stoking the fire in her so that she clutched at him, trying almost without being aware of it, to bring him closer.

His large hands, with their long, dexterous fingers moved restlessly over her body, as he seemed to commit her to memory.

She did the same, running her left hand slowly down his neck and over his chest, her left arm snaking around his waist. The scarring covered patches on his neck and most of his chest, but as her hand moved lower still...

V froze and groaned, his abdominals tightening at her touch.

His obvious pleasure excited her further and she began to tease him by running her fingers slowly down towards the waistband of his pants and then withdrawing. She repeated the motion several times, and each time she moved her fingers slightly lower... until, on the last pass, her fingers were wiggling just inside his waistband.

He was breathing hard now, but as she grasped his waist and prepared to pull him closer, he outmaneuvered her by grasping her hands and pinning them over her head. In the next moment her rewarded her teasing by kissing her and bringing his body down upon her.

It was her turn to groan as he pressed his hips against her, leaving her in no doubt as to his need for her. For good measure he ground himself against her once or twice, coaxing a few gasps out of her. Then he released her hands and rolling over, sat on the edge of the mattress while depositing her onto her feet on the floor before him.

With deft fingers, he undid her pants and stripped both them and her undies from her, tossing them aside and pulling her into his lap.

Evey found herself straddling him, panting as her body begged release, but her need to draw this out, to take time to discover him enabled her to retain some of her thought processes.

"Kiss me," she begged him.

He complied while kneading her flesh with his left hand and slowly worked his way down her hip and over her thigh. The thumb of his hand drew dangerously closer...as she moaned in frustration and rocked her hips.

And then he was there, rubbing the most sensitive part of her as his teeth nibbled her neck. So primed was she that, within less than a minute, she came, calling his name.

Every bit of strength seemed to go out of her then and she sagged against him as he held her close and waited for her to catch her breath.

They continued to kiss and ran their hands over each other until she recovered sufficiently enough to continue.

Again the fire was building within her as she began to lead by example... tempting him with her own kisses so that he took charge, becoming more demanding and kissing her ever more passionately. Then she teased his lips with her tongue, prodding ever so slightly and withdrawing, then repeating it until she gained access to his mouth.

She was rewarded with a deep moan and the feel of him surging ever harder beneath her.

He likewise took charge of that kiss, invading and exploring her mouth. His control was slipping, she could feel it in him, as his hands gripped her tightly, beginning to demand a surrender on her part; bruising her as he strove to pull her more firmly against his erection.

She disengaged herself from the kiss, pulled his hands from her hips and unsteadily regained her feet. Then it was her turn to undo his britches and pull them off him as he eagerly lifted his hips to assist her.

Sinking to her knees, she placed her hands on his ankles and slowly slid them upward over his calves, which proved to be badly scarred. Yet when she reached the level of his thighs, she encountered smooth, unmarred flesh. She slid her hands higher still... and they both groaned as she found him in the darkened room.

"...what I can and cannot handle, indeed..."she breathed, pleased with everything about him. She wasted no time, but began to tease him gently with her hand.

"Evey..." her name on his lips was a plea.

Then she bent forward...

His legs tensed as he began to shake with reaction.

"...Evey... Evey..." he chanted.

Somewhere in the back of her head she knew she should probably stop, but his reaction to her thrilled and excited her beyond reason.

Having reached his breaking point, V pulled away, stood and scooped her up against him. Turning swiftly, he threw her on the bed and followed her down.

This was it.

She knew it even before she felt his knee prodding her legs apart, demanding her surrender.

And then he was lowering himself onto her; his chest to hers, his arms hooking beneath hers so he could support himself on his elbows while cradling her head with his hands, and finally the heat and harness of him pressing against her belly.

...And the woman in her let go, nature taking over and judging this male as worthy. It was a surrender as old as time and one that every woman feels the instant that her true mate is recognized.

Then he was kissing her again and sliding... sliding down slowly as he shifted his hips. He was whispering her name and seeking entrance...

She cried out his name as he took her, and he growled then, a deep, feral sound, as he lost control and began to move against her.

Evey threw her arms and legs around him, hanging on for dear life as the power she had so admired in him took control and literally rocked her world. She found herself gasping as the feel of him brought her to new heights.

Then she was arching against him and calling his name.

Her release triggered his own.

V threw his head back, reared in the air over her and bellowed.

And at that exact moment, the meager light that filtered in from the Shadow Gallery caught his face and she saw him.

It had been the briefest of glimpses and it hadn't been the clearest, but it was enough.

She'd seen him.

She knew him.

Everything had changed and yet nothing had.

He was the man she loved but couldn't have, just as he had been and would remain.

The concept behind the word, 'bittersweet' finally became very clear to her, for she had never before felt so happy and so sad at once in all her life.

And then he was kissing her and murmuring a phrase from a love poem as he rolled to his side and pulled her to him. The last thing she remembered she drifted off into a blissful sleep was the sound of him sighing softly.

* * *

V lay there and watched her sleep. Now and then she would shift in his arms, press closer against him and then sigh as though relieved to find him still there. 

He kissed the top of her head and sighed for the umpteenth time. This feeling which had taken him over; this inner peace and sense of comfort... the feeling that he was right where he belonged and that nothing else mattered... was so alien to him.

What was it? Was it an element of love? Or was it merely the result of an endorphine rush? Or was it, perhaps, the feeling of being accepted unconditionally? Was that not part of love, the love that someone else bore for you?

"My love..." he whispered to her, just to try it out, then kissed her again. It felt right.

And she had been right to lead him to this place, this moment, this feeling. This night he had loved and been loved in return. Even now he smiled in the dark and remembered how shocked and pleased she had been when he had coaxed her out of an exhausted sleep to make love to her a forth time.

It had more to do with his desperate need to feel connected to her than with an insatiable lust. Even now he longed to wake her, to have her full attention, but relented from a fear of hurting her. She had teased that she was too sore last time!

Again he smiled as the memory of the night returned to him.

Ah, but he had been foolish to try to convince himself over the years that he was not a man, merely the embodiment of an idea...

Carefully, so as not to wake her, he eased an arm up and laid his hand upon her head. He loved the bristly feel of her shorn scalp and would miss it when her hair grew back. And to think that only yesterday it had inspired feelings of guilt to see it!

His eyelids grew heavy as he had a final thought: She had him now; though she probably did not realize it, he was wound tightly around her little finger. Already he was considering a slight change to his plans...

and with that, he drifted off into the best sleep he ever remembered having.

* * *

V sat in a chair beside the bed and contemplated it as he had every night since that night. The bed had become a memorial of sorts for him. He changed the sheets each week and made it up carefully, but he himself refused to sleep in it. 

Not without her. No, not without her.

He himself slept on the sofa these days, but he had paid tribute to the bed every evening.

This was the final evening.

If she failed to show soon, then he would never see her again. It was already after seven in the evening. Time was running out and his heart was breaking all over again.

So he sat and continued paying tribute to the bed and the memories it conjured within him.

* * *

Evey's heart began to pound as she approached the entrance to the secret lair known as the Shadow Gallery. 

She had stayed away for many months and it had been hellish for her, but what else could she have done? If she had returned sooner than this night, she would have stayed.

Yes, she would have stayed until this night and every night she stayed would have added to the almost unbearable pain she was now feeling.

She felt as though she were going to the execution of the man she loved, and how much worse it was knowing that he was his own executioner!

In just a few minutes she would see him again, her heart would soar and she would feel all the things that lovers felt when a long separation had come to an end. But then the agony of counting down to a final parting would begin.

Shaking her head, she forced herself to stop thinking that far ahead. She couldn't do this if she continued to keep thinking about THAT.

Of course she knew he had he missed her, but would he be angry that she had waited this long to return?

She had reached the door to the Shadow Gallery. It was unlocked.

Both heaven and hell awaited her on the other side.

Taking a deep breath, she pushed it open and passed through it.

**Next: The Spirit is Willing... (but the flesh is weak).**

**Quotes/Poetry:**

If I dream I have you, I have you, For, all our joys are but fantastical.

-JOHN DONNE, The Dream

It is an easy thing for one whose foot is on the outside of calamity to give

advice and to rebuke the sufferer.

-AESCHYLUS, Prometheus Bound

In misery it is great comfort to have a companion.

-JOHN LYLY, Euphues


	6. The Spirit is Willing

**Like Light and Cloud Shadow **  
A "V for Vendetta" short story by Tina Price.

**Preview:** V's life was forever changed the night he brought an unconscious Evey Hammond down to his home. Little had he realized that they would ultimately change each other's life... for the better.

**Disclaimer: **V for Vendetta and all characters therein are the property of Warner Brothers Entertainment Company and DC Comics.

**Author's notes:** This story (overall) is **rated R. ** Criticism and advice are always appreciated!

* * *

**Chapter Six: The Spirit is Willing...**Down beneath London, in the abandoned architecture of part of the city's erstwhile tube system, a man sat beside a bed and reminisced. 

V had his chair pulled close to the bed, and as he leaned his weight forward, supported by his elbows on his knees, he frowned beneath his mask. This bed was indeed his shrine to Evey. It elicited memories of the most wonderful night of his life, the most profound moment and one when he had stopped hating and suddenly felt... human.

The fire at Larkhill had given him back his spirit, his freedom; it had truly been a baptism by fire. Yet, the soul baptized that day had been feeble, weak... twisted. And so it had remained for twenty years.

It took a slip of a girl, no: a woman, and she nearly half his age, to restore his soul. She did it in this very bed, in this very room. For the first time in his remembered life, he had felt accepted, wanted... loved. And despite their long separation since, he had continued to feel that way. Despite that she had countered a statement of his by saying that he had become a monster...

He sighed. She would never know how those words, coming after what they had shared, had tortured him. They had literally rocked him back on his heels and left him momentarily speechless. He understood in a flash that she was not angry at him, that she was not rejecting him. She had, in fact accepted him, but that did not mean that she would condone his vendetta. Moreover, she would not allow him to use his past as an excuse for his actions.

"Evey," he breathed her name.

She would never know how his already amble respect for her had grown three fold at that moment.

It was then that he realized that she was a better version of him.

The parallels between them were ample: Their lives spanned the same breath of years if one considered that he could not remember anything before Larkhill and they had each been reborn, unafraid of facing injustice. Yet herein lay the major difference:

She had been baptized by water, he by fire. She had come out the other side with her soul intact, able to love and therefore capable of mercy, compassion and forgiveness. He had emerged with his soul all but obliterated, charred by the fire that set him free and the treatments that removed all memory of love or the better things in life.

Evey was V as he wished to be. She was now his model, even as he had begun their acquaintance as hers, albeit almost against her will.

And that was why this bed was so important. It was his symbol, a tribute to her and a reminder of the night his soul had reawakened.

His frown deepened. It seemed she was not coming after all and the ache within his chest intensified. He had so wished to see her, this one last...

Music.

The jukebox had begun to play the song he had played so long ago for her, on her first night in his home.

Standing, he moved to the door so quickly that several of the paperback books in the room ruffled their pages in his wake. But he knew nothing of this, his entire mind focused on greeting the person who had just arrived, but whom he had been expecting for months.

He pushed the door open and moved forward past the wall of shelves... and there she was, waiting for him at the jukebox. Her head was still shaved. She had somehow chosen to keep it that way. She was wearing a too thin shirt which showed off her breasts, a skirt and flat shoes.

All in all, she was, as ever, beautiful to his eyes and V felt as though his chest would burst as his heart seemed to swell within him. Was this what the literature referred to as a lump in one's throat?

For once, his articulate nature deserted him and he found himself mute, his mind too distracted to form clever sentences.

"I wasn't sure you'd come," he said, using the hidden accusation to mask his elation.

"I said I would," she smiled.

He nodded. Of course. He should have known that she would not break a promise to him.

"You're looking well," he finally managed. It sounded horribly like small talk to his ears, yet now that she was finally here with him, he felt suddenly shy and uncertain. There was so much he wished to say and couldn't. There was so much more he wished he could have... but never would.

He had very little time left with her. He had to think of it that way, for it seemed unlikely that he would survive the night, but there was something he did want from her, something he had wished for months ago and every day since. It was a simple request, but difficult to ask.

What if she refused?

Evey stood next to the jukebox and leaned upon it, supporting herself. Though she appeared outwardly calm, it was but an act. Inwardly she was a jumble of emotions and her legs felt like jelly. Seeing him again, hearing that charismatic voice... knowing that at any time now he would leave her...

He was speaking again and it snapped her attention back to him, as she tried to concentrate on what he was saying.

"I have a gift for you, Evey. It's the reason I wanted to see you again, but..." he began, as he walked slowly towards her. His next words seemed unusually hesitant. "Before I give it to you... I was hoping you might like to dance?"

She was stunned, and then remembered that he had mentioned dancing at their last meeting. She smiled up at him.

"Now? On the eve of your revolution?"

"A revolution without dancing is a revolution not worth having," he replied, having reached her side. His body language revealed him to be more than a little anxious for her response.

"I'd love to," she replied honestly and had the satisfaction of hearing him exhale softly with relief.

He offered her his hand while his other punched a well-memorized selection on the jukebox.

And then he was pulling her to him…

* * *

He remained silent as they danced, but he held her firmly and the eyes of his mask never left her face.

After a time, unable to bear the intimate perusal, she stepped closer to him, wrapped her arms about his neck and leaned her head on his shoulder.

He responded by placing his arms around her and slowing his steps.

It was a slow, intimate dance that felt right.

It lasted until the song ended, at which time he reached out and without a word, punched up another selection. Then they drew apart and went back to a more formal dance style. She imagined that was because he, like her, felt a deep sadness welling up within, knowing that they would soon be parted. They were in fact trying to protect themselves.

To help lighten the mood a bit, she began to make small-talk, wanting to let him know how much she admired his plan in general and his intelligence in particular.

V seemed to graciously accept the praise, but offered little back in the way of conversation, seemingly focused entirely on her and their dance. Perhaps he was making it a memory to be held to no matter what was about to befall him.

Yet she had one more thing she had to bring up; she wanted to let him know that she had seen him that night in the darkened room, and that it had changed nothing, he was still the only man she ever thought about…

So she steered the conversation around to his face and how she didn't even know what he looked like. It was a white lie. She did know, she just hadn't seen all the details.

Then she slowly reached for his mask, intent on removing it and kissing him, to prove that he didn't need to hide from her, not anymore, but he brought his hands up and gently stopped her.

His voice was equally gentle, as he tried to convey something important, "Evey, there is a face beneath this mask, but it isn't me. I'm no more that face than the muscles beneath it, or the bones beneath that."

She withdrew her hands, uncertain of what he was actually telling her. In any event, the moment was gone and along with it, her chance of convincing him that it didn't matter to her. So she said the only thing she could.

"I understand."

"Thank-you," he replied.

Then the music was over and he stepped away from her, once more the cool, composed mastermind.

"Come, it's growing late and I have something I must give you." He pointed towards her jacket as he collected his cloak, knives and hat.

They fortified themselves against the cold and then he led her from the Shadow Gallery.

V led her through the unused portion of the Shadow Gallery, which was, as she had seen on the way in, completely cleaned. No trace of the detention center remained except for the desk, the two interrogation lamps and a few chairs near one wall. Also present were several mannequins, now stripped of their uniforms.

They passed through the doorway which led up to the street, but instead of continuing straight ahead towards the stairs, they took a u-turn through an arched doorway. Then he unlocked a very large steel door and ushered her ahead of him.

After they passed the locked rooms that housed V's roses and the shrine to Valerie, the corridor changed, becoming more tunnel-like.

V paused next to an alcove in which there was a small treasure trove of tools and mechanical supplies. On the floor was a wooden pallet with wheels and a pull cord. Behind it was another naked Mannequin.

"What is all this?" she asked, unable to comprehend what it was he was trying to show her. Was this the gift he had spoken of?

"This is not my gift to you," he answered, correctly reading her expression. These are merely some of the tools I've made use of these past twenty years. The pallet came in handy for moving heavy loads.

"Heavy loads? Whatever were you doing?"

"You're about to see..." He sounded amused.

* * *

"Is this another trick, V?" she asked, suspicion in her eyes.

"No. No more tricks. No more lies. Only the truth," he answered. "You made me understand that I was wrong, that the choice to pull that lever is not mine to make.

Her eyes narrowed. "But why?"

"Because this world, the world that I am a part of and that I helped shape, will end tonight. Tomorrow a different world will begin, that different people will shape and this choice belongs to them."

When he saw alarm begin to transform her face, he knew it was time to take his leave.

As he exited the train, unseen by her, his hand produced a domino from beneath his cloak and stood it upon the train's control box. It was the very domino he had plucked from his huge domino arrangement only days ago.

The very day BFC had begun the massive delivery of his masks, he had begun to lay a huge circular pattern made up entirely of evenly spaced dominoes. Some were red, some gray and some black and together they had formed, over the course of several days effort, a large red V, his symbol, in the center of a circle of black and gray.

The point of the V was the trigger, comprised of one domino which would go on to topple two, which would topple four, and on and on... putting the entire arrangement into motion.

He had imagined that large V as his plan, himself the trigger that set one portion of that plan after another into motion. In his mind, all the dominoes making up the right side of the circle represented the citizens of this so-called state, while those on the left represented the government and all its Norsefire supporters.

His masks had been delivered and his domino emblem completed the day that a little girl died in the world above. As the final portion of his plan went into motion, as that little girl's death began the chain reaction in London that would spread throughout the U.K., he had sat before his domino art and toppled the first domino.

He had watched, as before him, the model of his plan unfolded and as the final two arcs of the circle clashed, he had wondered which would come out on top, the government or the people? He was therefore stunned when he saw that one perfectly placed domino did not fall, but remained upright.

"There is no coincidence," he had said aloud, rising from his position on the floor and striding about the emblem to investigate this unexpected twist.

Leaning down, he had plucked out the final domino and then blinked in amazement as he turned it over in his gloved hand. On it was a double five, depicted in the roman characters he preferred.

And he knew it in an instant: this domino represented Evey.

He had orchestrated the plan, put everything in motion, but when all was said and done... she would be the one to decide which way the final dominoes fell.

And so he had left the choice to her, having seen that it was not his decision to make.

Should she set this train in motion, that final domino would fall and by her will his plan would be completed.

And now his time had come; his enemies, those who created him were awaiting him down the track. He continued on out of the train and down the platform.

"Where are you going?" he heard her call out behind him.

He had so hoped to make a clean break, but there was nothing for it now but to turn and answer.

"The time has come to meet my maker and to at last repay him in kind for all that he has done."

Again he turned, intent upon finishing what was started twenty years ago, but Evey was now running towards him.

"V, wait! Please!"

He did.

And then she was there, gripping his hands, holding him back so that she could make her plea.

"You don't have to do this." She searched his mask desperately for some clue to his response. "You could let it go. We could leave here... together."

And there it was; the one offer he had both dreaded and hoped for. She was offering him a second chance, one with her.

"You were right about me," he replied. "I am become a monster. All that I deserve now lies down that tunnel."

"Don't say that," she sobbed. "It isn't true!" And then her arms pulled him close as she reached her face towards his.

He found himself dipping his head down to meet her, his own hands now on her waist.

She kissed him. She kissed the mask and although he could not feel the touch of her lips, still he reacted to the feel of her in his arms, to her warmth and the gift she was offering him.

When she pulled away they stared at each other for a long moment.

And he found himself actually torn... her plea, her offer of a future being given almost equal weight with the need to complete his vendetta, even if it cost him everything.

"Evey... I can't." It was a testament to his will that he had even managed to say it. Somehow he forced his hands off her waist and instead took her little hands in his own. It might be the last time they touched and he just couldn't leave without slowly weaning himself of her.

Then, with a supreme effort of his indomitable spirit, he dropped her hands and leaped off the platform, striding away quickly lest she call him back.

* * *

Out of her sight, well down the tunnel, he retrieved three items he had hidden. Throwing back his cloak, he removed his jacket and strapped on the standard police issue bullet proof vest. Over top of that he added the breastplate to a suit of armor. 

Then his jacket was replaced with a larger one he had made to fit over his new undergarments.

He was ready. He'd done all he could to stack the odds in favor of his survival. Now it was up to the powers above to determine his fate.

* * *

Creedy and his men were waiting for him when he arrived. He took great pleasure in moving quickly into their midst and making himself seem to appear out of the shadows.

Soon the moment was upon him, the one that would remove a great evil from the world: Sutler was dragged down the filthy stairs and dropped in a puddle at his feet.

"I want to see his face," he growled.

The next moment he was confronting the man who had exterminated tens of thousands of human beings in the name of, of all things, unity. And he didn't seem so omnipotent anymore, the front of his pants stained with urine and the smell of feces bearing witness to his disgrace.

Creedy killed the man with a bullet to the head, just as he was meant to all along.

V felt no elation at Sutler's death, simply a sense of relief; the most difficult man to get to had been gotten to. And now all that remained was the 'Spider' himself. To get to him, he would need to go through nine of the man's best fingermen.

He was up to the challenge and removed two right off the bat for trying to unmask him.

"Defiant to the end, eh?" Creedy had commented. "You won't cry like him, will you? You're not afraid of death. You're like me."

"The only thing that you and I have in common, Mr. Creedy, is that we are both about to die," he replied, taking a deep satisfaction in his chosen words.

"Is that so? And how do you imagine that will happen?"

"With my hands around your neck," he answered with relish.

Creedy seemed taken aback. "Bollocks!" he finally spat. "What are you going to do? You've got nothing! Nothing but your knives and your fancy Karate gimmicks. We've got guns!"

"No," he countered. "What you have are sixty-two bullets and the hope that when your guns are empty I'm no longer standing. Because, if I am, you'll all be dead before you've reloaded."

"That's impossible!" Creedy's words were forcefully delivered, but his face showed a shadow of doubt. Then he gave the command," Kill him!"

And V felt himself battered by a barrage of bullets. The force of each shot that found its mark knocked him back and he had to fight to stay his ground. Yet despite the pain, he did remain standing. His will, his spirit having taken over complete control and forcing his body, his flesh to do the improbable.

Then there was silence.

His adversaries were out of ammunition.

V found himself doubled over and it took him a moment to catch his breath and take stock of his condition.

He had a broken nose, possibly a broken cheekbone as well. Although his mask this evening was made of metal, it had effectively pounded his face with each shot that hit it.

One eye was starting to swell closed. He needed to act before it did, his precision with his knives depended upon stereoscopic vision. His nose was bleeding, gushing over his lips so that some dribbled through the mouth of his mask.

Pain was everywhere; in his chest, his arms and his legs. Pain was something he knew well and could deal with. Yet, something was not quite right; he had broken ribs, of that he was certain. Perhaps one had punctured something...

No matter.

He straightened carefully and found himself still up to the challenge ahead, though it hurt to even draw breath.

And then there was nothing but his determination to beat the clock: him taking them out depended upon his bizarre reflexes and speed.

It was time to make good on his promise to Creedy and his men.

He stood up and centered himself for what was to come: his 'Dance Macabre' as he liked to think of it. His opponents stood before him, literally too stunned to move. Now was the time to inform them that the clock was counting down; that they were about to race him for their lives.

"My turn," he stated, matter-of-factly, then let fly two blades with his off hand.

They spun in deadly arcs through the air, too fast to be seen as more than just a blur, diverging in their trajectories before slamming with unbelievable force into the men standing on either side of Creedy.

The fingermen flew backwards from the impact, both of them dead before hitting the ground.

Instantly the remaining seven men began to move, intent upon reloading. They were now taking his threat very seriously, he thought with grim satisfaction.

With a blur of motion to those around him, he began the dance. To him things actually seemed to slow down, the neurons in his brain firing just as quickly as those that commanded his muscles. His muscles, possessing the ability to contract at many times the speed of those of a typical human, responded in turn. 'And what good would this fine arrangement be if his brain lagged behind?' he thought. This then was the reason for that facet of his mutation. His increased intellect and voracious search for knowledge was actually just the by-product.

Mentally shrugging off the 'whys' and 'hows' of his abilities, he took the first steps, accelerating forward as time slowed around him. His was a minimalist style; no wasted motion, everything balanced and graceful, each move setting up the one to follow. In a split second he had taken stock of his opponents' positions and now he embarked upon the path that would introduce him to each of his dance partners in the swiftest fashion.

One swing, one slice, a pivot and swing resulting in another slice… Two opponents fell dead. He took a step forward, crossed his arms and then brought them outward in powerful arcs as he turned. It made a deadly pirouette, as another partner fell before he even knew they were finished dancing.

Leaning back, he let a knife fly over his shoulder. It caught a man on the far side of the station, taking him out of the equation.

Three men left.

He moved onward and all the while, his body sang to him; nerve endings humming with bioelectrical signals, his tendons and ligaments creaking under the strain produced when velocity contributed to force and the very air around him whooshing as he displaced it.

He slammed a man, slicing his throat as he was propelled backwards, then swiveled to greet the next, his arm arcing upward to sweep his legs forcefully into the air. His opposite arm delivered the downward coup-de-grace in perfect time with the man's fall. Then he stepped forward and let another blade fly. It took the last fingerman in the forehead and drove him backward with a vicious snap that broke his neck. He was doubly dead before he hit the pavement.

It was nearly over.

Nine fingermen lay dead, all before they could reload their weapons. All that remained was the worst of them all, the butcher of thousands: Creedy.

It was then that he made his first mistake; he slowed down. Under other circumstances he might have taken the man out as quickly as he had dispatched the others... but this was the spider himself, the worst of all his enemies. V had threatened to kill him with his own two hands, and he wanted the man to see it coming.

It was therefore with some surprise that he took a bullet to the chest. The impact actually knocked him back a pace as it occurred to him that he had been out-foxed.

Creedy had not discharged all his bullets during the initial round, nor had he fired while his men were dispatched. The shrewd and vicious man had waited for the right moment.

The question was; how many more shots did he have left?

These thoughts flew through V's mind in the second before Creedy fired again.

"Die!" the bastard screamed as a second bullet slammed into V's thigh.

And then V managed to put on a final burst of speed, dodging the next three bullets as his nemesis continually commanded him to die.

After five total shots, the pin clicked on an empty chamber, but Creedy continued pulling the trigger, hoping for a miracle.

"Why won't you die?" he asked, his voice suddenly small, uncomprehending.

V lunged suddenly and now had him by the neck. He lifted the much larger man up as though he weighed nothing, as Creedy's eyes widened in shock at his strength.

"Beneath this mask there is more than flesh," he replied. "Beneath this mask there is an idea, Mr. Creedy... and ideas are bullet proof."

With that he ended it, snapping the man's neck as though it were merely a stick. With a great deal of satisfaction, he dropped him in a heap and turned to leave...

And then he realized his second mistake. Creedy must have used hollow points, otherwise known as cop killers because of their ability to penetrate protective gear.

He had been hit, and badly, too. The round in his upper chest had passed through armor and bullet proof vest alike... and his thigh was pulped.

A great wave of dizziness hit him, the walls and floor of the old station seeming to warp before his eyes. His life was ebbing away, his task completed, his will no longer burned hot enough to sustain him.

Reaching beneath his cloak, he eventually managed to free the armor chest plate. After one look at the hole in the upper left side, he dropped it on the floor. It had served its purpose; the rest of the bullets that struck it had left large pock marks in its surface, but had not pierced it, nor the vest beneath. It had been enough for him to make it to Creedy.

Another wave of dizziness overtook him. He was getting worse. Only one thought was on his mind now, and he summoned the last reserves of his considerable willpower to complete one more labor...

He had to return to Evey... had to tell her how her really felt...

He took a moment to bind his thigh with strips from his cloak. The pressure bandage would slow the bleeding and buy him enough time.

...he hoped.

"Ah, Evey," he spoke aloud. "My spirit is willing, but this time I fear my flesh is too weak..."

Part way down the tunnel, he stopped to remove the bullet proof vest. It was soaked with his blood, and again a hole was clearly visible in the upper left side.

Reaching up, he felt his wound. Strange how numb it seemed... In addition to the bleeding, his collar bone was badly shattered and he finally realized why he could no longer seem to move his left arm.

His thigh was unstable and threatening to collapse at any time. As it was, only his determination and unique muscular control allowed him to walk on it. In any other person, he felt certain the muscle would have given out, leaving the shattered bone to snap and buckle.

Not much further now: Just a bit more and he would see her again.

Oh to see her again, to have her face there before him as his eyes grew dark... He could think of no finer way to die.

With a final burst of kinetic energy, his last reserves, he propelled himself forward, two, five, ten paces to the entrance to the train platform.

"Would she be here? Had she waited for him?" His vision was blurring, he was on the edge of blacking out...

And then he heard the most wonderful sound in all the world... Evey was calling his name. There she was; running towards him. He tried to hurry to her, but his leg finally gave out with a snap and he went down.

She caught him, somehow breaking his fall and he found himself wrapped in her arms as he had been all those long months ago.

It had been long, too long, since he had felt this way, since he had felt such love ...

Yes, that was it. It was love, and there was no longer any reason to hide it from her.

He had precious little time left to say the things that really mattered.

Evey was moving to treat his wounds when he stopped her. He needed her to listen to him and as badly hurt as he was, he knew her treatment would be no more than a waste of time.

There was no point in telling her that he had tried to stack the odds in favor of his survival. That would just make it so much worse for her. Yet, he could tell her that he wished with all his heart that he could have lived, for her sake, and so he did:

"For twenty years I saw only this moment," he whispered, weakly. "Nothing else existed until... I saw you. Then everything changed... my life... my reasons... my wishes."

He tried to raise his hand to her face, but found that he couldn't, he had lost all of his strength and she was already fading before his eyes.

"I fell in love with you, Evey... like I no longer believed I could. And every day that drew this day closer made me understand that it wasn't blood I wanted... it was another chance..."

"For what?" she sobbed.

"For roses," he said, struggling to finish the thought before the darkness claimed him. "...not for me... for all of us."

* * *

V sagged in Evey's arms, suddenly heavy, seemingly dead and she felt a panic rise up inside her so intense she thought she would go mad.

"V? Veee!" she wailed his name as she pulled him to her and rocked him in her arms.

And then an anger rose up inside her and it was directed towards herself.

That part of her that HE had awakened, that HE had liberated sneered at the Evey of old. If she was too weak to even try to save him, then she didn't deserve his love. Best that he die than see her failing so abysmally after all the precautions, all the risks she had taken!

Reaching into her pocket she removed a small knife and began to cut his clothing wherever she saw the most blood. She quickly located the thigh wound. It was by far the most life-threatening as his life's blood was running freely from beneath bandage he had tied there.

My God! He was still alive. His heart was beating! Cutting up his already mangled cloak, she fashioned an old fashioned tourniquet and twisted it tightly with piece of steel she found on the platform.

Loosening his mask, she swept her fingers beneath it, clearing a large amount of blood from his mouth, making certain his airway was open. She wouldn't be able to tell where he was bleeding from without looking, and that she would never do; not without his permission.

Heaving, she managed to turn him on his side and positioned his head so that the blood would not choke him. Then she whacked him in the back.

No reaction.

Clenching her fist as her good friend Michael had taught her, she took her knuckles and dug them into the skin above his sternum, raking back and forth with them.

This time she heard a faint wheeze and gurgle.

Thank God, he was breathing!

Jumping to her feet, she ran like all the demons of hell were on her heels. Through the passage connecting the tube station to the gallery, to the area where he had stored a wheeled pallet. Rushing back with it she managed to brace it so that she could pull him atop it.

Then she was pulling him behind her, moving as quickly as she could maneuver without losing her precious cargo. She took him all the way back to the Shadow Gallery, to the area which had at one time housed the detainment center.

After a quick check to make certain he was still breathing, she backtracked to the passage that led up to the street... And as she neared the street exit, she had her cell phone out and on speed dial.

The connection was made.

"Michael!" she all but screamed into it as she burst outside. "Hurry! Hurry!"

"I'm on my way."

In the distance she heard an engine turn over.

"How bad is he?"came the voice on her phone.

"It's bad! Oh God! Hurry! He could die before we get to him!"

An ambulance roared around the corner and squealed to a stop. She was in motion before the driver even got out, pulling a gurney out of the vehicle's rear, then taking the things that he handed her and throwing them on top.

He himself shouldered a large knapsack and added two heavy cases to the pile, then together they grabbed the loaded gurney and disappeared into the darkness that led down to the Shadow Gallery.

* * *

Dr. Michael Cahill was in the middle of applying the last pounds of pressure to the traction splint on his patient's right leg when he heard the man grunt.

Could he already be coming around? Impossible!

Looking up, he was startled to see that the fellow wasn't only coming around; he was apparently lucid, alert and watching him intently. The scarring on man's face was too rigid to allow him much expression, but the look in those eyes was chilly, distrustful and perhaps even resentful. Only the barest quiver of his lower lip and the tremor that now began in his limbs, gave away that he was in pain.

And it had to be some seriously terrible pain, the doctor thought.

"I'm sorry, we haven't been introduced yet," he addressed his patient, as he secured the torsion apparatus in place. "I'm Dr. Michael Cahill, an internal specialist from St. Thomas'. Would you care for some pain relief? You're not allergic, are you?"

His patient seemed to still be judging him, his eyes raking him from top to bottom in a slow, insolent manner. Then again, perhaps he was used to such things, what with the mask having provided cover all these years. Perhaps he no longer realized the rudeness of his perusal.

Then V noticed that he was being stared down and quickly turned his eyes elsewhere, towards his surroundings, which confirmed Michael's supposition.

His patient first noticed that he was on a blood-soaked gurney in the middle of the unused portion of the Shadow Gallery. Then, looking down, he spotted a good deal of his blood pooled and splattered on the stone floor around him His eyes passed over the extra lamps which had been brought in, the desk they were set upon and the surgical trays which sat there beside them. Then he tipped his head up, noting the final two units of blood which were dripping their contents directly into his external jugular vein. Hanging beside them was a bag of IV fluid and a smaller one of antibiotic, these traceable to the vein in his right arm. Only then did his gaze return to Michael's face.

"As far as I know I have no allergies," he managed to say. "and I will take a little pain relief, if you don't mind."

Incredible! Although weak, there was no doubt that his voice was indeed the same cultured voice all London had heard that day the Bailey went up. This man, whom Evey had told him was known only as V, was indeed the very same man who had roused up the masses by blowing up the Bailey, taking over London Tower and reminding everyone of what they had given up: their freedom.

As he gathered a syringe and a bottle of synthetic morphine, he began trying to build some trust in the hopes that his patient would relax enough so that his body could begin to heal. From the little that Evey had told him, this man had no reason to trust physicians and every reason to hate them. Best to try and get around that hurdle now.

"Please allow me to fill you in on what is going on," he said, as pleasantly as he could. As he reached for V's arm, the man offered it to him. "Evey had me waiting up on the street on the off chance that you lived long enough to make use of me."

"Where is she?" V asked as he injected the morphine.

Michael smiled. "She phoned me a short while ago. She's just finished having a good long chat with a detective named Finch. She's on her way back."

V's eyes softened and his voice seemed stronger as he asked, "What time is it?"

"Oh, about three hours past parliament," Michael replied, having a hard time keeping the amusement out of his voice.

"So she did it."

"Well, she did tell me she was off to blow up parliament," he laughed. "And not long after that, this place shook as though an earthquake had struck, so assume she was true to her word."

His patient nodded and seemed to relax.

"You know, I've never had the pleasure of treating a hero before," he quipped. "It was awfully nice of you to decide to live and make it a very good memory."

V sighed wearily. "The spirit is willing, doctor… As to the rest; there are those who have called me a monster, not a hero. I myself agree with them. I did what was necessary in uniting this country against Sutler and his toadies, but I also carried out my own form of justice and one I may add, you would not condone."

"Without the facts, I cannot agree or disagree with your assessment of me." He shrugged, and then began removing the bloodied sheets from beneath his patient, intent upon cleaning him up. "I wanted to explain about your mask," he continued, pushing clean sheets beneath V and smoothing them out before tucking them in. "Firstly, Evey has not seen your face."

His patient sighed in apparent relief upon hearing this.

"I, on the other hand had to see you in order to help you. All I can say is that doctor-patient confidentiality is sacred. I'll not ever tell anyone that I've treated you, nor will I ever reveal what I have seen."

"Thank-you."

"You know, your face is not all that bad off, chap. A good surgeon could restore it by eliminating much of the distortion your untreated scars are causing. You really should consider it."

V frowned and cut him off. "Please, doctor. I have lived this way for over twenty years. This is no face, it is a mask, as immobile as the mask you removed and of as little consequence." He said with some passion; despite the drug he'd been given. "I do thank you for your timely assistance tonight, but please do not mention my face or the treatment possibilities to Evey."

"I won't, but I don't think you understand me. When I say that they can restore your face, I am also talking about motion. If the worst of your scars are 'released', you'll find you have greater mobility and less discomfort."

The man known only as V briefly closed his eyes. When they opened, they stared at him fiercely, almost angrily. His voice, however, was emotionless, "The surgeons you speak of would simply be gilding a mask. It still would not be my face anymore than it is right now."

"Right. Well... about your injuries..." he began, somewhat shaken by the man's insistence that he had no true face. "You've a broken nose, which I've set, hence the bandages. Your left cheekbone is fractured. It will heal. Your face is pretty badly pulped from the pounding those bullets transmitted through the mask..."

"Doctor, you surely are not telling me that I've lost my good looks?" V sneered.

"No, I'm telling you that it has improved your looks. Now, please, no more interruptions..."

He had the satisfaction of actually eliciting what seemed to be a stunned look.

"Ah yes, as I was saying, your entire torso is one massive bruise. You have several broken ribs and your left clavicle is pretty badly broken. I had to actually remove some bone and bullet pieces and stitch up the punctures in your subclavian artery. Bone and bullet bits together make some pretty nasty shrapnel."

"And therein our first major problem: the main body of the bullet is still in there and I cannot begin to guess exactly where it is or what other damage it may have done. We will have to talk about this a little later on and come to some important decision."

V nodded in agreement, apparently feeling more relaxed now that the edge had been taken off his pain.

"The second major complication is that you've suffered a collapsed lung. I had to put in a suction drain." He gave his patient what he hoped was his most authoritative look. "I strongly recommend that you not remove it! I will take it out in a few days when your lung is unlikely to collapse again."

"And finally," he continued with a sigh. "...there is your leg wound. V, the bone in your right thigh, your femur, is shattered. It's a mess. I know, I actually had a good look at it while I repaired your femoral artery. Again, I removed the smaller splinters, but if you want to walk again, you'll need surgery. I may not be an orthopedic surgeon, but I know enough to see you'll need a rod in that bone if you ever want to walk again, the bone is too splintered to mend properly on its own."

"I'll not allow you to put me in hospital," the vigilante responded.

"Again, we'll talk more about this after you get some rest."

"I agree," came his dry response.

"Something I should know?" Michael threw back.

"Only that there is a possibility you may be wrong," he answered. "I may require no further intervention, so it would be best to wait a day or two before reassessing the situation."

"I suppose this is related to the fact that you survived your burns? At over sixty three percent of your body, your chances of survival were quite small, yet survive you did, even without medical intervention. The shock alone should have killed you and surviving that you should have been dead of a massive infection within days."

His patient nodded. "Evey has, of course, noted some of my unique abilities, doctor, but she doesn't know the extent of them. Nor do I wish this repeated to her."

"Of course not!"

"I was an inmate at Larkhill, which is to say that I was no more than an experimental rat," V explained. "I won't go into the specifics of the experiment I was a part of, suffice to say I was the lone survivor. In their zeal to understand why I alone should survive and why I developed my, shall we say, 'quirks', my captors subjected me to obscenely thorough exams." He paused then and seemed to wilt as exhaustion overcame him. "What they found was that even before their viruses had the chance to mutate my DNA, that I was not entirely… normal."

Michael sat down; fascinated with the information he was being given. "You possessed a mutation to begin with?"

"Yes, a deletion/addition. It exists in all my cells. I cannot recall my past, not one day before Larkhill, so I do not know if I was capable of anything out of the ordinary before the virus mutated me further."

Michael's mind made a sudden connection. "I see. So the chances are good that this genetic rearrangement would interfere in your ability to successfully sire a child. ...Well, that explains a lot..."

It was out before he knew he was about to say it and Michael felt the blood drain from his face even as he saw V's eyes narrow and grow steely. Dear God, he had given her away… his patient was far too intelligent not to figure it all out.

"But enough of that," he said, trying to change the subject. "Let me get these empty units down. Did you know that we almost lost you twice? We ended up replacing your entire blood volume. You have Evey to thank for your life."

Still, his patient watched him as though he had suddenly become his prey.

Michael attempted to press on. "If you continue to be a model patient, I may even tell you how she held up the hospital blood bank and nicked an ambulance... and all on the way to seeing you tonight."

As he pulled down the empty units, his patient's arm moved like lightening and in the next moment he felt himself hauled down by an iron strong grip on his collar.

When V spoke, his face was inches away, his voice pitched low and dangerous, "Doctor, all I want to hear from you right now is; how is it that you know Evey?"

Michael felt a prickle of fear course through him. Though his patient had been at death's door only a short while ago, he did not doubt the abilities Evey had told him he possessed. Even now the man seemed too far too strong, considering his wounds.

Trying to keep his voice even, he spread his hands in a gesture of good will and desperately tried to find a way to explain without betraying her.

**Next time: The conclusion!  
**


	7. I, While Living

**Like Light and Cloud Shadow **  
A "V for Vendetta" short story by Tina Price.

**Preview:** V's life was forever changed the night he brought an unconscious Evey Hammond down to his home. Little had he realized that they would ultimately change each other's life... for the better.

**Disclaimer: **V for Vendetta and all characters therein are the property of Warner Brothers Entertainment Company and DC Comics.

**Author's notes:** This story (overall) is **rated R. ** An **NC-17** **Rated** version is available on my homepage. Criticism and advice are always appreciated!

* * *

**Chapter Seven: I, While Living...**

Somewhere in the Shadow Gallery, a heavy door creaked open. It was followed by the sound of Evey calling out, "Hello? May I come in?"

"Doctor, my mask," V ground out. Although grateful the man had saved his life, it didn't mean that he had to like him.

"One moment, Evey," the younger man called out. Then he swung back to face him. "You can't have the mask, he stated. It's gone; Evey took it with her earlier. Besides, your face is too badly swollen to tolerate a mask. We'll have to improvise."

V watched as he searched through a pile of items that Evey had probably provided. And as the doctor went through the clothing and supplies, V continued to sum him up, while fuming silently to himself.

He was young, which was to say that V guessed him to be no more than twenty eight years of age. He was tall, lean and well built, with blond hair and blue eyes.

Handsome.

All in all he was the kind of man most women thought of as a 'catch'. And therein lay the rub: That this handsome fellow was friends with Evey could not be denied, and so V found himself suddenly with a competitor.

Oh Evey might not think of the doctor in such a way, and the good doctor himself had stated that they were simply friends with a common goal, but no young man in his position risked his career and life to help a woman who was merely a friend, let alone one whom he had treated as a patient.

The doctor was after Evey, was hoping for her, that much was certain and given enough time and latitude, he might possibly win her away. After all, Cahill could give her the kind of normal life she would never have with him. He could walk the world above with her; give her social status and all the finer things...

And although V felt he could not hope to compete with the doctor's good looks, compete he would, for he did know something this man didn't. He knew that despite everything, Evey was already his, as he had known it that night up on the balcony, as he'd known it in her bed and as he'd known it down in the tube station. He would never make the mistake of taking her for granted, but would cement her loyalty the old fashioned way; with love and trust and kindness.

He would not yield to this younger man, no matter how young, how educated or how handsome he was. Neither would he give Evey any reason or desire to do likewise.

No, he did not have to like the good doctor, but he would treat him civilly until such time as the doctor discovered for himself who the true alpha was and where Evey's loyalties really lay.

"What about this?"

V stopped brooding the moment he was addressed. The doctor was holding up one of his wigs and a red silk scarf, which he recognized as Evey's. She must have intended that these items be used to this purpose, so he nodded.

* * *

Evey waited around the corner at the end of the gallery for permission to enter and visit a man who should be dead, yet somehow wasn't. Against all odds, he had somehow survived, her plan had somehow made a difference and to top it off, Detective Finch was convinced that the terrorist known as V was dead.

What a night! She was currently in such a state of anxiety that she feared she might never be able to sleep again! Her worry over her erstwhile lover's condition was almost more than she could bear, and if she wasn't invited to enter soon, she would do so anyway.

She had already spoken on the phone briefly with Michael, so she new that V was alive and stable at the moment, but beyond that...

Finally she heard Michael invite her in and she sprang forward at a full run, which ended only as she rounded the final corner and skidded to a standstill. She had stopped dead in her tracks at the sight that greeted her eyes; and it wasn't an unconscious V languishing at death's door...

For there he was, sitting up on the gurney, wide awake and watching her. Yes, watching her... with those beautiful, wide set, dark blue eyes she had glimpsed in the light only once before. He wore the wig she was accustomed to, but only her thin silk scarf covered his lower face, from the eyes down.

And then she was carefully, oh so carefully, sliding next to him and wrapping him in her arms as tears of joy and relief rained down her face. It was almost too much to bear, having nearly lost him, having come here this very night thinking she probably would, and then to be greeted by him like this!

She sobbed like a baby, all the while pressing her cheek to his own and holding on for dear life, while his right arm encircled her and did the same.

She was barely aware that she kept repeating," I thought you left me, I thought you left me!" or that he was soothing her with his own repeated sentence, "Never, Evey, never again..."

Finally she began to calm, comforted by his nearness, his scent and his one-armed embrace. She finally accepted that he was still with her and not likely to be leaving anytime soon, so she dried her eyes, caught her breath and lifted the scarf enough so that she could kiss him.

And kiss him, she did; a deep, soulful kiss it was, and one that managed to communicate just how grateful she was to have him with her. And then, for good measure, she rained them over the rest of his exposed face.

As she pulled back to look at him, the sight of his eyes, his TRUE eyes regarding her with wonder, nearly made her start crying again.

"I love you," she breathed. "It's what I so desperately wanted to tell you that night so long ago, yet couldn't."

Then his hand came up to gently pull against the back of her head, forcing it down to his right shoulder, so that he could again press his cheek to hers.

"Oh... Evey..." he breathed, apparently finding those words to be enough.

Long minutes ticked by as she hung onto him, still having a hard time believing her good fortune. It was only when he groaned and shifted uncomfortably that she reluctantly sat up.

"V, I'm so sorry..." she apologized, only then taking in his immobilized left shoulder.

His eyes twinkled. "Don't be. It was well worth the discomfort."

Evey looked around then and noticed that Michael had disappeared, no doubt to give them privacy.

"Looks like we drove him off," she smirked. "And here I wanted to ask his honest opinion on your condition..."

He lifted his hand and brushed her cheek. "You can always ask me."

She shook her head. "And trust you not to gloss it over? I think not!"

His eyes crinkled with amusement. "You know me too well." Then he was suddenly serious, "Tell me Evey, everything that I missed this night."

And she did, explaining how she had moved him up here, how she had brought the doctor down and fetched the old interrogation lamps to better light his impromptu surgical suite and then how she had retrieved his mask and clothes from Michael and hurried off...

V didn't seem at all surprised, but merely nodded as she covered each detail. "Then what, my dear?" He finally prompted as she hesitated.

So she told him the part he really wanted to hear; of how she had dressed a mannequin in his tattered, bloody clothes, mask and cloak and placed it atop a pyre of gelignite in the train, then topped it off with roses. Her tribute to him...

And then the most amazing coincidence, as a detective had stepped out of nowhere and commanded her to stand-down. He had seen the false V and believed him truly dead, and been doubly astounded when Evey refused to step away from the controls.

In the end, that detective, Finch, had seen things her way, agreeing that the people needed hope, not the building that was about to go. And so she had sent V's effigy down the tracks to bear witness to Parliament's destruction and then watched with Finch from the balcony as pyrotechnics and bits of mortar and stone filled the skies.

She had spent the last few hours walking the city with the detective, bearing witness as the population scattered the military and celebrated the end of their oppression.

The two of them had talked quite a bit, he telling her what he knew, while she confirmed some things and pleaded ignorance of others.

In the end when they parted, she had his card and his personal phone number, as well as a promise that the Shadow Gallery would remain secret: he would trust her to see to it that its treasures were eventually restored to the people. He believed the gallery to be her home now, and would not visit unless invited.

"So you see," she explained. "As far as the world is concerned, you did die tonight. All that's left for them is your dream and the symbol you represented..." She took his hand and kissed it before continuing, "...but I have got the man himself and I intend to hold him in this world for a long while to come."

He nodded and sank further back into his pillows, exhausted, yet apparently deep in thought.

"So what will you do now?" she asked.

"Evey, my dear, I haven't the foggiest," he answered truthfully. "My plan has ended. It was never meant to cover this moment, nor those to follow. I suppose that for now I have no other plan other than to make healing a priority."

She raised her head. "Let me go find Michael so that we can get you settled in for the night."

He brushed her cheek. "Evey… before you do, there's something I would like to ask you."

"You can ask me anything," she replied.

He took a deep breath, causing the scarf to billow out. "How is it that you know Dr. Cahill?"

She froze. It was the last thing she had expected him to ask her now. With a sense of dread she somehow knew he had already asked Michael the same question and would instantly compare their answers to judge their veracity. The problem was that she had something to hide and it was highly likely that he would discover an inconsistency unless she kept her answer simple.

So she forced herself to look him in the eyes and answer, "I collapsed at the market place where I was working. Dr. Cahill… Michael happened to be there is all."

"That still does not explain how he came to be your friend," he stated. "If he merely picked you up and dusted you off, that would have been the end of it."

"I had to go in hospital for a bit," she admitted, hoping desperately that he would accept her answer and not push it any further.

Then he asked, ever so softly, "Were you bleeding, Evey?"

His question shocked her to the core. How could he have surmised that; had Michael told him?

"Yes," she answered numbly, too shocked to even consider lying.

He cupped her face, his thumb gently stroking her cheek. "My love, did you lose a child; our child?"

She felt as though she had been punched in the gut. How could he have determined… Closing her mouth, she swallowed the lump in her throat and nodded.

Again he pulled her to him, holding her tightly and she felt him kiss her forehead through the scarf, as he rubbed her back.

"I'm so sorry," he told her, his voice none too steady. "I'm so sorry that I couldn't be there for you, so sorry that you had to go through everything the circumstances entailed and all without my support and... I'm so sorry for having been the cause of it."

"How did you figure this out?" she asked, sniffing and wiping away a tear. "How could you possibly have jumped to such a correct conclusion?"

He sighed. "Don't be angry with the doctor, my dear. He accidentally let slip something on what should have been an unrelated subject. Everything just 'clicked' together for me then."

She nodded, not understanding what unrelated topic could have led him to his conclusion. "As to it being your fault; it does take two, you know. I knew the risk, V," she admitted. "It just didn't seem that it would be likely given the time of my cycle and that we were together just the one night." She laughed bitterly. "When I found out… the fear came back. You know how it is up there for unmarried mothers. Sutler made certain that those proved to be of questionable moral fiber never had the chance to raise their babies. They are... were given over to the state."

He remained silent, but hugged her tighter and kept his cheek against hers. It was a long time before he spoke again.

"Tell me more, Evey. I'm sorry to make you relive it but I really wish to know. Only then can I put this to rest."

So she told him the story; how, in her third month, she had miscarried alone and without medical help in her apartment rather than risk discovery by the authorities that still searched for her. She had seemed to be fine for the next few days, but then her bleeding grew worse and she began to feel very ill. The day she collapsed in the market, Michael had been there. It was he who had revived her, quietly asked her the hard questions, and then told the gathering crowd that an ambulance would be unnecessary.

Putting her in his own car, he let her know that she had to have treatment as he took her to the hospital himself. Once there, he made certain she remained 'under the radar' while a D&C was performed, then got her home and checked up on her daily.

Right from the beginning, he had recognized her as V's accomplice, for whom the police were still searching, and his admiration of her was the catalyst from which their friendship had sprung.

When she finished her tale, she lifted her head to find that V had turned his face away. She gently held his chin through the scarf and turned it back so that she could meet his eyes. "What is it?" she asked, when she saw his pained expression.

"Why didn't you come to me?" he asked. "You carried my child, yet still you stayed away..."

She sighed and fought the tears that threatened to come. "V... Don't ever think I didn't want to. At first I was in denial. Then, as things progressed, I had to weigh the benefits to the child against the possibility that my coming back here like that would be the one thing that would derail your plan."

"You stayed away because you thought I would have changed my mind and not followed through?" he asked, incredulously.

She nodded. "I was still trying to work out what to do when..." She couldn't continue and dropped her eyes.

"Evey, look at me," he said gently. When she did, he continued. "You were right; I would have dropped my personal vendetta, although I would still have had to find a way to take out Sutler and Creedy and I still would have blown up Parliament. And I don't think, given the circumstances, that I would ever have regretted making that choice." He brushed her tears away with his thumb.

"I told you that from now on you'd hear only the truth from me. When I told the doctor of my mutation, he immediately and too quickly surmised that I might not be able to sire viable offspring. He then mentioned off hand that it explained something."

"Oh," was all she could say.

"Evey, I knew that something significant happened to you, something that warranted more than just minor treatment from the doctor," he explained. "Putting that all together and wondering, as I have these last months, if there was a consequence to our tryst, how could I not see the truth?"

"I doubt that most people would have pieced it together that quickly, if at all," she replied dryly.

He sighed. "Perhaps not, but then I am not 'most people', to my great regret. And now, added to the long list of things I cannot give you, there is also this; you more than likely will get no child from me."

She blinked at him. "You're saying that I miscarried because our child had a genetic defect?"

"Nearly all mutations are lethal, my dear," he explained. "Obviously mine were not lethal to me, but the changes in two of my chromosomes since Larkhill are drastic enough to make proper fertilization improbable. The resulting embryo would be beginning with a serious, fatal error, one which could not result in a living child."

"V, you cannot know that for certain," she began. "There are centers that do genetic testing and counseling..."

"No, I cannot know for certain, but it is very likely that I am correct." He was suddenly unable to hold her gaze and again looked away. "This is something you must think long and hard upon. Only you can decide what you can or cannot live with, but I..."

Again she turned his face towards her. "Tell me," she encouraged him.

It was his turn to fight back tears. "I don't think that I can have you and then give you up. I already love you too much to be that selfless." Again he pressed her against his shoulder and leaned his cheek against her own. "You'll have to decide before... this goes any further between us. Can you understand? I'm asking for time, for you, for me… I must be certain of you, of the fairness of this to you, before we speak to the future."

Then he whispered, so low that it was under his breath, "You shouldn't have saved me… The doctor would've been your better choice."

She grew angry then. Indignant.

Then her anger faded as quickly as it had come. He was in a fragile place and only her understanding and the right words would ever get him past this.

"Hush," she whispered back, as she hugged him and kissed his cheek. "Michael is a wonderful man, but I do not love him. My heart only lives while you do. And I made my choice a long time ago in this very place; in your bed."

Brushing aside the bangs of his wig, she planted a kiss on his forehead. "If you want time... if you want to take this slowly, then we will, and we will discuss this subject and any others that arise, but you have to accept that I did make my choice. I thought I lost you tonight. I thought you were gone... Now that I have you, there is no hope of me ever rejecting you."

The tears he had been fighting against fell then, rolling down his cheeks to wet the scarf below. He pulled her to him and hugged her as though his life depended upon it.

* * *

Together she and Michael wheeled V to the bedroom in the gallery and carefully settled him into the bed. With the injured man's permission, the doctor had shown her V's wounds and given her the rundown of their extent and what needed to be done for the next few days.

She was painfully aware of the way V averted his eyes and as she looked. There was no doubt that he felt ashamed of his scars and that she had been introduced to them in this way, yet he had allowed it and that said a lot about the trust he had in her.

Before leaving, Michael gave V another dose of pain medication. Then he handed over the rest of the medical supplies, cautioned her to phone him at the slightest sign of fever, wished them both a good day and gone.

After showing Michael out, she returned to the bedroom to find V already asleep, and pausing just inside the doorway, she took the time to drink in the sight of him.

Several very large pillows propped him up. His left arm lay across his chest, immobilized in a sling; his right lay atop the covers at is side. His head was turned to the right, the hair of his wig framing his face and head in a black, silky puddle. The covers were drawn up to his chest, nearly hiding the black silk poet's shirt he was using as his nightclothes. Besides that, under the covers, she already knew he was wearing black silk boxers and nothing else. She could see the outline of the traction splint through the covers and winced at the memory of how painful it looked.

But then again, his entire thigh looked gruesomely mangled. It had to be excruciating, so she supposed that he might not really be minding the splint.

Slowly she drew nearer to him and knelt next to the bed so that she could look at him close up. His eyes were closed, his lids twitching as he dreamed. Despite the visible scars and the scarf that hid his lower face, she found herself focused entirely on his eyes.

Who was it that had said that the eyes were the windows to the soul?

How right they were...

Resisting the urge to stroke his cheek, she rose and, as quietly as possible, collected the things she would need for a shower. She was just leaving the room when he quietly called her name.

She turned to find his position unchanged, but his eyes watching her sleepily.

Placing her things on the vanity, she returned to his side and this time she did stroke that cheek and kiss his brow.

"What is it, V?" she asked, still running her hands over his skin.

"Stay? There's room enough... and I swore..."

"What, my love?"

His eyes widened at her choice of words, followed by a contented sigh. "I swore I would never sleep in this bed again without you by my side."

She smiled, deeply touched. "I was planning on just that. Let me get cleaned up."

He nodded and then drifted off, the final dose of painkiller having done the trick.

Rising, she collected her things and headed for the shower, eager to be clean and in bed with him.

* * *

He slept fitfully; terrorized both by pain and by bad dreams he couldn't quite remember. Yet, interspersed with them were brief memories of a gentle hand playing with the hair at the nape of his neck and a voice murmuring words of comfort...

V gasped and was suddenly awake. The pain from his leg had reached a throbbing crescendo, drowning out the pain from all his other injuries and leaving him bathed in a cold sweat. His mouth was dry; no doubt a side effect of the medication, which apparently had worn off.

A glance at the clock showed the time as seven in the morning. He had slept a full seven hours, thought they had not been restful ones.

The events of the previous night returned to his still fuzzy memory. The last thing he remembered was Evey leaving to have a shower.

Evey. Where was she?

He became aware of her arm draped over his chest and shoulder, as her fingers began playing with the hair at the back of his head. She was curled up against him under the covers.

Sometime during the night she had managed to relieve him of his scarf and wig, for which he was grateful. He felt claustrophobic enough as it was; his shoulder and leg useless, bandages everywhere and his leg screaming bloody murder with the slightest of movements.

Yet, somehow, knowing that she was with him, the pain became bearable. With a deep sigh, he steadied his breathing and focused himself. Gradually he was able to block out much of the pain, dropping it down to a bearable level.

His thoughts then turned to her.

Carefully, he slid his free arm around her so that he could run his fingers over the bare skin of her back. In the dark of the room, it was impossible to see her, but he knew she was naked. He could feel the heat and silk of her skin against his own.

Was she playing with his hair in her sleep or was she awake?

It was hard to say, as her fingers moved chaotically. Ah, to be able to gaze on her! Unfortunately the darkness of the room robbed him of the pleasure, and for once he had an understanding of her desire to glimpse his face, of why it was so important for her to at least she his eyes.

And right now he yearned to be able to see her; she was the best part of him, the best reason to go on living.

To think that she had carried, even for a short time, his child, yet stayed away... for love of him; because she respected and loved him enough not to wish to change the fate he had made for himself.

It had been a true demonstration of selfless love.

"Evey?" he whispered near her ear, wishing to discover whether she was awake.

"Shhh..." came her soothing response.

And then she did something he never would have expected; she sang to him, her voice sleepy, tired, yet beautiful... and all the while she played with his hair;

"Every time I look at you the world just melts away...

All my troubles all my fears dissolve in your affections.

You've seen me at my weakest but you take me as I am,

And when I fall you offer me a softer place to land...

You stay the course, you hold the line, you keep it all together;

You're the one true thing I know I can believe in.

You're all the things that I desire, you save me, you complete me;

You're the one true thing I know I can believe..."

Her voice and the words she sang so softly gave him chills, despite the fact that she was half asleep and he in pain. And suddenly he could remember that she had sung to him on and off, all throughout the long night, soothing him whenever he awoke.

His heart swelling with gratitude towards her, he planted a kiss upon her forehead. Then, happier than he ever would have believed a man in a shattered body could be, he relaxed utterly, drifting off into a restful sleep at last.

* * *

Evey awoke around nine and stifled a groan as she began to rise. Then she remembered where she was and stayed utterly still, listening...

Beside her, V was breathing softly and rhythmically.

She exhaled in relief. He was sleeping and for once deeply, without the constant gasps and stifled moans that had punctuated the last few days and nights.

Shortly after being settled in he had simply shutdown, remaining in a state of continuous, if restless, sleep. Michael had come and gone several times, had reattached an IV line to hydrate him and had even cleaned him up to spare him the embarrassment of Evey doing so. He had assured her that the wounds looked good and the leg seemed to be holding its own, though he had to loosen the traction considerably to avoid circulatory issues. There were no signs of fever or infection... V seemed to be healing very well indeed.

"But why hasn't he awakened?" she had asked, extremely worried.

"At the speed with which he's healing it would seem to simply be a part of the process," Michael had answered. "Or perhaps his body has no choice but to conserve every bit of energy given the workload of such a massive repair."

He had returned twice a day since and she had finally relaxed a bit.

Over the days she had done her best to sooth him and eventually found that just being against him, touching him and singing had produced the best results. She smiled as she remembered all the silly little songs that had slipped out of her. Thankfully she doubted that he would remember any of the sillier ones. She had simply searched for easy words just so that he could hear her voice.

But there had been a big change this day, in the early morning hours. She had awakened and at first thought he was again rambling, but then realized he was lucid and so she had sung him one last song; one she had been holding back, but had chosen during the long sleepless hours. It had just seemed... appropriate.

And he had sighed, squeezed her close and drifted back off.

Carefully, so as not to jar him or give herself away, she eased herself from the bed, donned a robe and padded out into the gallery.

She was exhausted, the round-the-clock care she had given him having taken its toll. At night she hardly slept, but instead comforted him. During the day, she cooked them meals in the hopes that he would awaken and share them with her, she kept vigil by his bed or in his bed where she might doze for a short while and she welcomed Michael, glad for his care and reassurance.

Evey yawned and stretched. At least the worst seemed to be behind V now and she did feel a deep satisfaction that she had been able to help him.

She headed towards the kitchen, happily certain that this was the day he would awaken. And she would hasten that awakening with the smell of a good meal.

It was already well into the day and Michael would be coming by soon. Giving it some thought, she decided to go up to street level and phone him before she got cooking. She would give him an update and ask him to stop by earlier than he usually did.

An hour later, Evey was placing the tray on the floor outside the bedroom so that she could slip inside and replace his scarf and wig before turning up the lights, so it was with some surprise that she saw light when she cracked the door open.

She froze and then knocked. "V? May I come in?"

"You may," he answered, his voice weary and hoarse.

She picked up the tray and pushed the door aside, then nearly dropped the whole thing at the sight that greeted her eyes.

"V!" she exclaimed. "My God, what have you done?"

He was sitting on the edge of the bed, his ruined leg out straight, heel propped on the floor and the traction splint off. And as if that weren't enough, the poet's shirt was off and so were all his bandages save the one around his upper thigh. The drains from his thigh and shoulder had been pulled, along with the IV line and were also laying on the floor, along with...

"No! Not the chest tube!" she moaned, all but throwing the tray on the vanity as she rushed to him.

He was holding a pressure dressing over the wound where the tube had been.

She quickly opened the medical bag Michael had left and removed the largest elastic bandage she could find.

"Are you bleeding?" she asked tersely.

"No. Don't fret, Evey. I'm quite better off than you might imagine."

She scowled at him, only just noting that he again wore his wig and the scarf. "Well right now the only thing I am imagining is giving you a good tongue lashing," she scolded. "Are you really insane, or are you merely the most foolish fellow I've ever met?"

As she talked, she wrapped the bandage around his chest, over the pressure dressing he was holding. Then she pulled it tightly, taking some satisfaction in his sudden, indrawn breath.

"A little of both I suspect," he gasped in answer to her question. "I certainly feel quite foolish most of the time when you are near me."

At any other time she might have blushed and been pleased to hear such words from him, but at the moment she was both frightened for him and furious that he had risked his life. She finished securing the bandage then stepped back and looked him over.

To her surprise, the massive, black bruising that had covered him had already faded to a medium shade of green. The eye that had been nearly swelled shut was now fully open, very little swelling remaining around it or on any of his exposed face. She could see that the nose splint had also been removed as it was on the floor at her feet.

He reached out to take her hand and she was startled to see that it was with his left hand; that arm had been useless a few days ago.

"Evey, love, don't worry. Come and look..." he placed her hand squarely atop the shoulder wound, where Michael had sewn him up.

She ran her fingers over the incision site, then bent closer to confirm what her fingers and eyes were already telling her; the incision was closed. It wasn't merely scabbed over; it was closed; healed shut with new skin. A fresh scar formed atop the ones that already mottled him.

"How...?" she breathed, meeting his eyes and the amusement she saw in them. "This isn't possible..."

"It is," he affirmed. "But the process is a costly one. I'm literally starved half to death and if you don't bring me that tray of delightful smelling food you went to such trouble to prepare... I shall be forced to fetch it myself!"

Shaking off the shock she'd had, she retrieved it as V used part of the splint to lever his leg up onto the bed. For all his bravado, she could see what the movement cost him as he lost all color and broke a fine sweat everywhere over his unscarred skin.

Once again setting the tray down, this time next to the bed, she made him lie flat while she sat beside him and mopped his brow with a cloth and cool water she kept near the bed. "Fetch it yourself... Indeed," she admonished. Then she ran her hand over his chest, making him gasp and lock eyes with her. Despite his injuries it seemed her touch still moved him greatly. Yet that had not been her intent.

As she moved her hand over his ribs, her worry increased.

"Oh, V... you aren't lying about being starved; you're all ribs," she said. "Still, you shouldn't be moving so quickly and you'll have to be very careful to eat slowly as well. You've been out for days."

"Days?" his eyes searched her face. "Really? How many?"

"Four. How is your pain now? Would you care for some medication?"

He was still stupefied that he had lost so much time, but eventually refused her offer. "No thank-you. I need to eat and drink and I can't whilst taking that." V struggled to sit up. "Here, help me with these pillows, if you don't mind."

She did, piling them behind him so that he could sit up to eat. "I suppose you'll be taking out your own stitches next?" she joked.

"Unless you would be kind enough to do it for me?" He wasn't joking.

"I'm already going to catch hell from Michael over this," she griped. "All he asked was that I promise not to let you get that chest tube out... and the first time I leave you alone... "

He reached up then and pulled her face down, then lifted his scarf just enough so that he could kiss her soundly. When he pulled back they were both out of breath.

"I am sorry, Evey," he said. "For having put you through so much..."

"And scaring me to death," she prompted.

"And that." He kissed her again.

"Not to mention insulting me..."

His eyes narrowed as he thought it over. "When did I do that?"

"When you implied that I might not want you, that I would do better with Michael."

Scarf or no, he had the decency to look embarrassed. "Alas, I shall have to blame that on the drugs."

* * *

Michael had been and was now gone, with a promise to collect V the following afternoon, having talked him into allowing x-rays.

She had met him up at the street entrance.

"How is he?" had been the first thing out of his mouth after giving her a quick peck on the cheek.

"Actually, he's so much healed that you're not going to believe it," she'd answered.

"Really? And the chest tube?" As she turned to look behind her, one look at her face had given him the answer. "Oh, Evey! It was the one thing, the only thing..."

She had cut him off, "Michael, he was sleeping. I went to fix brunch and the rest is, as they say, history."

"Well, if he's still doing well so long after its removal, then I suppose that all's well," he had huffed, still put out by his patient's audacity.

And he had been correct, his examination revealing an amazing improvement in V's injuries.

Still, he had argued with his patient over the need for x-rays, finally making a valid point after making the man aware that healing fast did not necessarily equate to healing correctly… and how did he feel about the possibility of a permanent limp?

Returning to the Gallery after showing Michael out, Evey sighed. She was tired, weary in body and mind, and she could really use a long soak in a tub, except that V didn't have one.

She was desperate for some sleep and made up her mind to camp out on the sofa for a nap, but first she popped into the bedroom to check up on the man she loved.

He was wide-awake, propped upon his pillows and reading a book. He lowered it when she bent over to place a kiss on his forehead.

"I'm going to take a nap," she announced. "Will you be alright for a bit?"

"Of course," he replied, but as she headed for the door he spoke again, some surprise in his tone. "Are you napping on the sofa then?"

She stopped and looked back over her shoulder. "Just this one time. I'm exhausted and unlikely to rest as well if I stay here. You know how you fidget..."

He chuckled. "Quite right. I'm already becoming desperate for a good workout."

"Then, can I trust you not to push yourself while unsupervised?" she chided.

"Not in the least," he answered, picking his book back up.

With a grumble, she snatched up an extra blanket and left the room.

* * *

She awoke many hours later to find her worst fears realized. A loud thumping had awakened her and she sat bolt upright, scanning the Shadow Gallery over the top of the sofa for a certain manic someone.

Unable to spot him right off the bat, she rose and wandering towards the rhythmic sounds, found him at the far end of the gallery, dressed in his dark dressing robe, and wearing the scarf, wig and some slippers. He was seated on the displaced piano bench with his leg also upon it.

It was the area of the gallery that he referred to as the armory, where he usually worked out and he was throwing knives at a thick wooden board he often used as a target. After the last knife left his hand, he rose and hobbled on one leg across the room to retrieve it, without the use of his walking stick.

'Give me strength,' she thought to herself and had the satisfaction of seeing him start when he turned and saw her standing there, her hands on her hips.

"Evey, love, you're looking rested and lovely as ever," he said, apparently feeling that the best response was to turn up the charm. "You've been sleeping a good five hours and I had begun to become anxious for your company."

"V…" she began, then stopped as she sniffed the air. "Have you been cooking as well?"

"Why yes, a feast for two," he said cheerily. " I just thought I would exercise the shoulder while it finished up."

"I see," she answered, doing no such thing. "Well now that I'm up you can either go back to bed or have a seat out on the sofa. Either way, you are not to be up and about any more tonight… no negotiations."

"As my lady commands," he replied with a bow.

Summoning the loudest humph she was capable of, Evey set out for the kitchen.

Once there, she found that he had a chicken roasting in the oven, complete with carrots, potatoes and celery. Fresh croissants were on a baking sheet, just waiting to be baked… and he had already cleaned up and set the table.

Looking at the number of wet dishes on the drain board, she knew he had already ravenously disposed of quite a few leftovers. A quick peek inside the icebox confirmed it.

Checking in on the chicken one more time, she noted that it was just starting to brown. "How long on this?" she yelled.

"Another fifteen minutes until we need to pop in the croissants," he called back.

With a shrug, she set the timer, opened a bottle of wine and poured up two glasses. It certainly was a pleasure to be with a fellow who not only cooked and cleaned, but liked to do so... even if he did have far too much energy for is own good.

Picking up the glasses, she headed back to where he lay stretched out on the sofa and handed one over. He scooted further back into the cushions, accepted the glass and patted the space next to him invitingly. Settling in beside him she sipped her wine and noted that he had the news on.

"Anything of interest?"

He looked at her, then rubbed her head affectionately. "Now that you mention it, yes..."

"I meant on the telly," she laughed.

"Oh. The usual rioting, hard liners being ripped apart... and all that," He replied, sounding somewhat distracted. His eyes were raking her in a lazy, appreciative manner.

She wondered how often in the past he had done just that and she had been unable to tell. No matter, tired or not, it lit a flame within her. She suddenly had to feel him next to her and share the passion that was rising up in her; she wanted to reconnect.

Taking his glass, she placed it on the coffee table next to her own and then swung around a lay full length beside him, her face just inches below his own. She had his full attention, his head dipping down so that he could gaze directly into her eyes. Then his face moved the last few inches as he lifted the bottom of the scarf and she moved to meet him.

The kiss was tender, loving and warm. A slow fire building, rather than a quick conflagration. After a time he was kissing her neck and moving to her throat as his arms tightened around her and his hands began to wander.

Mindful of his leg, she moved astride him, pushing him down into the sofa so that she could run her hands over his shoulders and down his chest as they kissed. She was pushing them into his robe, working it open when he caught his breath, then caught her hands, stilling her.

"Evey..." he ground out. "You'll drive me mad."

She leaned down to kiss him again. "Too late," she husked against his lips, pressing against his hardness to make her point.

"I think its time to bake the croissants..." he protested.

Shaking off her amusement at his attempt at humor, she tried to free her hands, but found that he wasn't complying.

"V... " she begged. Then she noticed how still he had gone, and the pained look in his eyes. "What's wrong?" she asked, feeling as though she had been doused by ice water.

"I do want you," he whispered. "More than you can know, but we agreed to take things slowly, remember?"

Of course she did, but some part of her hadn't believed that he would take it that far. Drawing back, she stared at him and tried to keep the disappointment from her voice.

"I remember," she admitted. "I guess I just couldn't help myself..."

"Nor I." he released her, kissed her and hugged her to him.

After a while she lifted her head, unable to let the topic drop, though she knew she should. "So... you're not ready; to trust me?"

"It's not so simple as being ready to trust, love. I do trust you. It's a matter of striking a balance, of waiting until things are... right."

"And when will that be?" Again she fought to sound neutral, but her heart was pounding and she felt somewhat ill. She felt rejected even though she knew she shouldn't.

"Trust me to know when," he replied, then moved to kiss her again.

She evaded him and numbly began to rise from the sofa.

Again he captured her arm and held her a moment.

"Don't be glum," he sighed. "This is not a rejection. I really do need time to think, to plan... to come to terms with the fact that I am not dead. And I'm not the only one who needs to do some thinking. Everything is still up in the air, love. Be patient. We'll get there, I promise."

"Patient? This from the man who is walking about when he should be in bed, nearly dead?" she forced a laugh, doing her best to keep the hurt out of her voice.

The timer in the kitchen went off just as he let go of her. With that, she collected her wine glass and left the room as quickly as she could without seeming to rush... and felt his eyes upon her the entire time.

Dinner was awkward, but bearable.

At bedtime, he remained out on the sofa with a book, pleading that he had slept long enough. She left it at that and kissed him before heading to bed.

She was instantly sound asleep.

* * *

Michael arrived right on schedule the next afternoon to find Evey waiting for him on the street. Together they unloaded the wheelchair he had brought along and then he guided it down the stairs after her.

"Did you arrange things with your friend?" she asked.

"I did. Is he ready?"

"He is." She made a face. "I've not been in a good mood today and I believe he'd go almost anywhere with you right now to get a breather."

He searched her face. "Are you alright? Anything you want to talk about?"

"It's nothing, I'm just tired and cranky."

She might be smiling, but Michael knew her well enough to surmise that something was really troubling her. Still, he let it drop, knowing how obstinate she could be. If at any time she wanted to talk, she would seek him out.

'Or perhaps not,' a small voice in the back of his head spoke up. After all, she had her paramour back and he, V would most likely be her sounding board from now on.

Michael had to admit to himself that it made him sad to think how much he would now be giving up to the other man.

By then they were entering the Shadow Gallery, Evey calling out to V that they were there.

In the next instant they both got the scare of their lives, each of them flinching and letting out a quick sound of terror when V suddenly exited the bathroom as they were about to pass it.

He was dressed in loose fitting black workout pants, a gray long sleeved sweatshirt, black leather gloves and black sneakers. Over the pants, he had affixed a makeshift splint and he was using a silver walking stick for support. Over everything he wore a black coat of medium length.

Once again his mask was in place as well as the wig.

"Are you daft?" Michael yelled at him as Evey let out a groan and shook her head in exasperation. "How will we ever get you fixed up properly if you pay no heed to our good advice? You're going to ruin that leg!"

V's mask tilted as he regarded the other man

"I beg your pardon," he said. "But I am used to making all my own decisions; I've had twenty years in which I only ever answered to myself. Please do be patient with me as I adjust to doing the polite thing. Besides, I really had to use the facilities."

Michael had the absolute conviction that he was being laughed at. "Fine, do as you please, then." he sniffed, kicking the wheelchair so that it rolled away. "It'll be quite amusing to watch you getting around with a permanent limp. If you're lucky that leg may only heal bent or perhaps just a few inches shorter than the other."

He knew his words had hit the mark, despite the man's mask; for V stiffened and glanced down at his leg.

Michael turned to Evey. "We're off then. He can make his own way to the car, I daresay."

With that, he headed for the exit, leaving them alone together.

* * *

Evey stared at V, as a mixture of emotions ran through her. It saddened her greatly that he had gone back to the mask, yet it was also as though she were seeing him again after a terribly long time.

She had, of course, known that he had this other mask. The one that she had sent down the train tracks to its destruction had been much newer and made of metal, whereas his usual mask was of a tough, unbreakable plastic covered in a ceramic veneer. She could have brought it to him at any time, could have included it in the pile of clothes she had given the doctor the night before...

She had thought he would have known why she hadn't.

Or, more likely, he did know, but chose not to acknowledge it.

She jumped as a loud clack echoed in the Gallery, but then found herself in his embrace. He had dropped the walking stick and pulled her to him.

"Evey," he whispered, as his hands rubbed her back. "I won't wear it all the time. It's just until I get to the car; I have another mask on beneath it which I fear would provoke bad memories for you."

"Rossiter..." she breathed, knowing it could be no other.

"Yes. Tell me something?"

She looked up. "Ask."

"This is the face you know me by. Would you really prefer me to wear a silly scarf?"

"I stand by my assessment of the other night; you are a foolish man for all your intellect," she said, but with much amusement. "Don't you understand? I've seen your face. I saw the night you made love to me... and it changed nothing."

The mask drew back then and tilted ever so slightly. There was a long pause before he spoke and she knew he was trying to get a handle around her statement.

"But in the gallery, the night we danced..." he finally began to say.

"I wanted to remove the mask, yes. But only so that you would see for yourself that it made no difference." She reached up and stroked the mask's cold cheek. "I think I understand now what you were trying to tell me last night. You prefer to show the masked face you have used as your identity for years, rather than the changed and unfamiliar face beneath it... I can accept that. I only ask that you allow me to see your eyes now and then, because when I see them, I truly see YOU. That's all I really want."

He hugged her briefly and then stumbled back a pace.

"I must away." his voice was none too steady, as he watched her retrieve his walking stick. "I'd remove the mask right now and kiss you soundly, but I am, unfortunately wearing just the wrong face at the moment."

He took the cane from her, his fingers brushing her own and lingering for a moment. "It is a small thing you ask of me Evey, of great importance, yet difficult for me to grant. I do want you to know that I had already begun to realize just how important a shared gaze is." He nodded. "Give me time and I'll find a way that does not involve the scarf."

She nodded and smiled at her rather large victory. "Michael's waiting," she prompted.

With a nod, he turned and limped off, in obvious discomfort for she heard a muffled curse as her passed through the doorway followed by, "Damn that man!"

And Evey laughed, as she hadn't in months.

* * *

Once out of the Shadow Gallery, V removed both his wig and the mask and locked them in the gardening room, then slowly made his way up the stairs to street level.

Had he really been so close to death just a few days before? Even knowing of his uncanny healing ability had not prepared him for this recovery. And he had awoken to a new world, all without even venturing above.

Evey had miscarried, she had seen his face... and still come back; in fact, she had apparently decided he was the one!

And as if that weren't enough, a new person had entered his life; the doctor, Michael, his rival and perhaps... a potential friend?

He had to admit that the more he interacted with the man, the more he admired his intellect and personality. Then again, he should have seen this coming. After all, Evey liked the man, so he must have something going for him.

V stepped out into the daylight and took a moment to admire the sun, as he always did on those rare occasions when he ventured above during daylight.

A car pulled up in front of him, the doctor in the driver's seat.

V opened the door and carefully slid in before gingerly maneuvering his damaged leg inside. When he shut the door and looked up it was to see a dumbfounded look on the Michael's face.

"That's an awfully good makeup job," the man breathed. "I only knew it was you by your clothing and splint!"

"Yes, well one does have to shop on occasion," he answered.

"OK, we're off," the other man announced and the car pulled away from the curb.

* * *

It was close to three when Michael and V arrived at the practice of his close friend, and former medical school comrade, Jonathan Mann. A brilliant physician, Johnny had done well for himself after his residency and now ran a large, multi-physician orthopedic practice, complete with its own radiology department. True friend that he was, he had offered the use of his facilities, no questions asked.

As V lay on the x-ray table and allowed the radiology tech to take multiple pictures of his chest and leg, Michael gave Johnny a run down of the patient's injuries… and his unique healing abilities.

Long moments later, developed film in hand, they asked V in and went over the results.

It was astounding.

The clavicle was nearly knit; only a fine line remained where the previously ragged break had been and if it hadn't been for the scar and the mark from the recently removed stitches on the skin over the break, Jonathan never would have believed it.

As to the bullet, it was present but had embedded itself in a muscle behind his shoulder blade. It should be harmless where it was and needed no further treatment, unless it began to bother the patient.

As for the leg… after viewing the films both of them turned and stared at V in disbelief. The man had a faint smirk on his face, obviously not needing them to explain the image they were looking at; the long splintered fragments of his femur had made tremendous progress in knitting back together, from the distal margins back towards the point of impact. More than that, the two severed ends were already fusing.

V had finally spoken, "Well, my good men of medicine, what is the verdict? Shall I keep the leg without resorting to surgery?"

"I should say so!" Jonathan had exclaimed. "Let me get you a soft cast, though. You'll need it for a few days from the looks of it."

As his friend left the room, Michael had turned to his patient. "Are you taking any supplements? I just cannot imagine how your body is fueling this kind of frenzied bone repair."

V nodded. "I've taken a frightfully high dose of calcium and I've boosted my other vitamins as well. Aside from that, I'm about to eat myself out of my own home."

"Severe hunger?"

"You've no idea," came the dry response.

"Well then, let's stop for a bite on the way back; my treat." He had offered. "Besides, I've not had lunch and I'm ravenous myself."

V stared at him for a moment, apparently taken aback by the offer, then he nodded. "I should like that," he replied.

* * *

It was midmorning on a blustery, dreary day late in December when Evey received the cryptic note. She had been working at the British Museum for all of a month and had only just reached the stage where she felt the least bit useful, so receiving a note addressed specifically to her had come as a big surprise.

Sitting down at the shabby desk in the corner of the cataloging room, she carefully tore open the envelope and pulled out a folded paper. A thrill went through her as soon as she saw the finely textured beige paper with a seal stamped in maroon wax.

There was only one person she knew who went all out when writing… but why would he send her a note at work? Was something the matter?

She immediately broke the seal, unfolded the paper and read the elegant cursive within:

**Evey,**

**Please do me the honor of joining me for**

**lunch downstairs at the Great Court**

**Restaurant, twelve-thirty this afternoon.**

**Sincerely,**

**Your most humble admirer**

Her heart hammering in her throat, Evey consulted her watch, and then groaned. She would have to wait a full two hours before meeting up with him.

To think; V walking about above ground in broad daylight... and finally, she would see it. Oh, she had known that he did this on occasion, yet for the most part it was rare for him to 'procure' supplies before nightfall. She suspected that he did that only when the shops he wished to visit closed early.

"V..." she sighed his name as memories of the last few weeks came back to her.

* * *

At first, when he had not died, she had immediately jumped to the conclusion that a happy ending was right around the corner. She thought that he wanted what she wanted; a life together. After all, hadn't he told her just how much he loved her? 

She was bewildered when he first raised the issue of proceeding at a slow pace, but at the same time she felt she could understand the hesitation of a heart that had been so long denied any human comfort. Oh, how he must have feared the possibility of having love suddenly ripped away from him!

But a game of wills had quickly developed once he had healed. He still insisted on having her in his bed, in curling up naked together, but despite repeated evidence that he did physically want her, he refused to make the first move.

Her bewilderment had rapidly changed to frustration and anxiety as attempt after attempt at seducing him had been met with a polite, "Soon, Evey. Be patient my love." followed by kisses and reassuring hugs.

Eventually she had succeeded in pushing him far enough one night that, with a needful groan, he had stopped fighting her and let her have her way with him.

Evey sighed as she remembered how, at the time, her spirit had soared, her body rejoicing in their union. Yet after several such events in the following days, it had become painfully obvious to her that he was merely acquiescing to her needs; he never once initiated any of it, and to top it off he seemed rather withdrawn afterwards. She had wept silently in the bathroom after that last time, when she finally realized it; that she could push him beyond his limits and have his body, but that his spirit was still waiting.

And to her added shame, he had somehow known that she finally understood that, for he had been waiting for her outside the bedroom door, still naked and intent upon again comforting and reassuring her.

"Evey..." he had whispered as he rocked her in his embrace, she having started crying again the moment he pulled her to him. "I do love you, please do not doubt it."

"I just... don't... understand," she had somehow gotten out between sobs.

He had lifted her then as though she weighed nothing at all and returned her to her place beside him in their bed. And he had held her close and stroked her hair.

"I know," he soothed. "But you will, I promise that you will."

After that night she had stopped pushing him, had retreated sexually, though there wasn't a night she didn't ache for want of him. The sexual tension between tbecame almost a living thing that colored every touch, every longing look...

Not long after that, she had begun going out more often, for her own sanity's sake. She even began visiting with Detective Finch, meeting him for a meal here or there and hearing all about the government upheavals from his perspective.

She never lied to V about it either. If she was going to take lunch with Finch, she let him know as soon ass he knew and he never objected or seemed upset by it. On the contrary he seemed to relish the information she brought back with her.

V on the other hand had actually begun a friendship with Dr. Michael Cahill, and although they didn't get together often, she knew that the new relationship was a very important one for him. She was genuinely glad to see the two of them connect and at the same time she found it extremely amusing, for their interaction was always clever and often funny. They played so hard at trying to vex each other, yet were fooling no one. They had much in common and truly enjoyed their verbal sparring.

Then she had made a lucky break. Finch had introduced her to the director of the contemporary British exhibit at the British museum; as the woman who had helped him recover a treasure trove of lost artwork. It had been part of their plan on reintroducing the Shadow Gallery contents to society. It not only worked quite well, but also landed her a job, one she enjoyed and which paid well.

She and V had handed over elements of the Shadow Gallery on a routine basis ever since and the place was now beginning to look quite barren. They still had their personal favorites, as they were saving them until the end and the jukebox would be the last to go.

One night just a few weeks ago, they had discussed the gallery and the future.

"We can't just stay here, can we?" she had asked after they had each had a few glasses of wine. They were curled up together on the sofa, the news on, but the telly muted.

He thought for a bit, then answered carefully, "No, you're quite right; sooner or later we'll need to go." He was wearing a scarf, as he often did and suddenly turned a stern look on her. "When, oh when are you going to give up that flat of yours?"

"That depends. When are you going to formally invite me to move in with you?" she had asked, all but rolling her eyes at him.

"Oh dear. Have I unknowingly skipped a part of the courting process?" He was only half kidding.

"I don't know. Is that what you're doing; courting me?"

Feigning indignation, he had playfully pinned her to the cushions, all with just one hand. "I know you have your doubts about that," he laughed. "But in all seriousness, will you move in with me, Miss Hammond?"

She had nodded, all she was capable of until such time that he released her.

"Even if we must up and relocate?" he had added.

"Yes, I'd love to. Thank goodness, I've been wanting to get rid of the flat forever."

And then it had happened:

He had started to run his free hand over her...

There had been passion,

...and a gift,

...and a promise.

In the end it had all come down to her; her life, her choices. He had been waiting for her to get her own life in order before accepting her completely into his own.

Evey clutched the pendant that she wore, that she's always worn since that night and felt the elation of that moment again as the memory returned to her.

She smiled as she thought back on how much things had changed in the last few weeks, recalling the comfortable routine they had developed;

He was always out of bed, showered, dressed and cooking up breakfast when she awoke. The smell would fill the gallery, making it difficult to resist the kitchen and instead stumble to the bathroom for a shower. She would return in her robe, freshly scrubbed, her hair brushed out, to be greeted by open arms, a fierce hug and a sound kiss, for he never wore the mask at breakfast, opting instead for the scarf.

They would share the meal and good conversation before she had to finish readying herself for work.

By the time she was ready to leave, he would be back in his mask and dressed for a round of fencing or some other exhaustive workout. As he had explained to her, he had a physical need to use his muscles and push them to their limits; when he didn't, he paid the price, spending the rest of the day pacing, fidgeting and unable to keep his limbs still. The untapped energy would make it impossible for him to rest or even sit still long enough to read. Nor would he sleep at all those nights.

It was what he referred to as his manic tendency, and although the driving force was physical rather than mental, manic he definitely became.

She smiled at the memory of the last time she had enticed him to spend time with her rather than working out. He had ended up cooking a weeks worth of meals and freezing them... hand scrubbed the entire gallery floor and later he had enticed her into remaining awake with him... all night long. She hadn't been able to sit down for quite a while after that, which had amused him no end and led to his admonishment, "There now, my little minx... that will teach you to distract me from my exercise and keep me home all day and night. I do hope you've learned your lesson."

"Oh definitely," she had replied with a pained expression and a feigned attempt to ease her sore bottom on the sofa cushions.

"You did?" he had sounded very put out, acting as though she had seriously wounded his ego, but in the next minute he was reaching for her...

Evey quickly dropped that memory as it already had her blushing. Corr, what if her supervisor walked in?

Picking her thoughts back up; on the usual day, she would come in to work, then on the way home she might stop for groceries or anything else he might have asked her to pick up before heading back to the Shadow Gallery.

And he would be waiting; always with is arms wide open, always with a hug and a kiss. And he would follow up by leading her to the sofa and handing her a glass of wine or a brandy. He would have a glass of his own and listen to her tell of her day.

Sometimes he would have dinner ready, other times she would arrive with take-out fare, but more often than not they cooked together, ate together and cleaned up together.

What happened then was never any part of a routine. And that was the beauty of living with V; that you never quite knew what he would do next.

One evening he might dance with her near the jukebox, until they both stumbled over to the sofa and collapsed in a torrid heap upon its cushions. On another evening, he might ask if she'd help him tend his roses, afterwards presenting her with one and a chaste kiss. And then an evening might arrive where he literally snatched her off her feet and ravished her against a wall.

Every night seemed to be a brand new night with him.

* * *

She sighed as she came back to herself. How was she supposed to keep her mind on her work for the next two hours? 

It was going to be a very long morning.

* * *

She arrived at the restaurant, which was actually part of the museum complex, at exactly the appointed time, but was then struck with a slight anxiety. How was he disguised? Would she even recognize him?

Just then she was approached by one of the wait staff. The woman seemed to anticipate the problem and addressed her politely, with a genuine smile, "May I help you?"

"Yes, please. I'm meeting someone for lunch and believe he's already arrived."

The woman was looking intently at her pendant, clearly visible since her sweater was open and she hadn't needed to wear a coat.

"Would you happen to be Miss Hammond?"

Her eyes widened in surprise. "Yes."

"Your companion asked me to be on the lookout for you. Your pendant gave you away. It's quite lovely, where did you get it?"

Her hand reached down to grasp the miniature Guy Fawkes mask which dangled on the black suede cord. "It was a gift," she replied, blushing in remembrance of the night he had given it to her.

Polite as ever, the waitress merely smiled and dropped the conversation. "If you'll just follow me?"

They walked down an isle of tables and turned left towards the windows which lined the street outside. Just on the other side of a large potted stand of plants was a cozy table for two...

...and there he sat.

He rose to his feet the moment she arrived and gave her a peck on the cheek, then helped seat her, while she just stared at him, completely dumbfounded.

She continued to stare as he sat back down and regarded her with amusement.

"Well, what do you think?" he asked, although she could plainly see that he already knew she liked it.

And what was not to like? The reason for her stunned surprise was that she could have recognized him easily all on her own, for he looked like... himself. His cleverly applied mask and makeup were the image of the face she always seemed to visualize on those occasions when she had glimpsed him in the dark.

Seemingly unblemished skin now covered his scars. His nose was restored. There were even laugh lines around his eyes, which were now accented by well-arched brows. His ears now appeared undamaged and were framed by brown hair of a medium length and shade. She felt a jolt of elation at the sight of him. It was as though she was seeing a long lost love for the first time in many years.

"It's you," she finally replied, as she broke into a smile. "...just the way I've always seen you in my mind."

He gave her the best grin he could manage, then he reached across the table to take her hand, which he quickly kissed. His own hands were still covered by a pair of black leather gloves.

"That was the idea," he admitted.

They broke apart as their waiter arrived to take their drink orders, which gave her the chance to study him further.

He was wearing jet black jeans and a gray, scoop necked shirt with one of his dark charcoal gray silk shirts over top of it. A black leather belt and what appeared to be his usual boots beneath the jeans completed the outfit. It showed off his lean, wide shouldered, well-built form in a way that had several ladies in their vicinity staring in open admiration.

She didn't mind though, for she knew something none of them did; that he was already hers. None of them stood a chance.

She felt mildly embarrassed at being caught so obviously 'checking him out', when she came back to herself to see that he had tipped his head as he always did when he was amused.

He chuckled. "See something you like?"

In answer she grabbed his hand and squeezed. "Definitely," she answered.

He sat back in his chair and rested his hands loosely in his lap, while he regarded her. "So it stands up to scrutiny, then; even in the sunlight?"

"It's very realistic, but..."

"What, Evey?"

"It doesn't move, doesn't really change expression," she noted, her voice pitched low for his ears alone. "It looks like you've been overdosed on botox."

There followed a long, uncomfortable silence as the significance of her words sank in.

It all fell into place for her then, reaffirming something she had surmised so many weeks ago: his own face really was a mask, as unresponsive and nearly as frozen as his Guy Fawkes facade. But he felt more comfortable behind the guy Fawkes mask, as it had been his face for twenty years. His own true face was lost and replaced with an unresponsive mask of scars.

And only now was he rediscovering it, his true face, only to have her remind him...

Her hand flew up to her mouth. "Oh God, please don't take that the wrong way," she begged. "I only meant to..."

He held up a hand and did something very unexpected then; he laughed. And his mouth actually did open in a true grin that showed his teeth.

"I'm fine, my love," he protested. "Your Botox description conjured some very silly mental images for me. It was quite amusing."

Her heart was still flopping painfully in her chest and it wasn't until he again kissed her hand that she believed that he was alright with what she had said.

"I do understand," she whispered. "I suddenly understand everything..."

His eyes stunned her with the intensity of his stare. "I believe that you do." He rose from his seat then to lean forward and kiss her. "But honestly now, for I know you are always honest with me; how do you think this face will work?"

"I think it's a good as any you're ever likely to make. With a bit of work and experimentation you'll make it more believable."

He nodded. "I'm already working on that. Anyway, since I've passed muster I'll be popping by later as well."

She leaned forward. "What are you on about?"

His mouth turned up ever so slightly at the corners. "I was thinking of coming around to collect you at five so that we might visit a very nice little shop I am acquainted with."

"V…" she began, then lowered her voice. "I can't be calling you that here, can I?"

He shook his head. "That is something we shall have to discuss."

"So, what's this all about?" she asked, then added, "Not that I'm not intrigued and pleasantly surprised, you understand…"

He sat forward so that his face was close to hers and he could speak softly.

"You asked me a time ago what my plans for the future were. Well, it is something that has been very much on my mind. As I said then, I really had never thought beyond November the fifth. Well, now I've devised a new plan. It's not as convoluted nor as clever as my last one, but it is every bit as ambitious and important to me."

She sighed, so very glad to hear him say it. "Is it really? Important to you, I mean?"

He nodded. "Yes, it is. I feel that I've been given a second chance, whereas before…"

"You thought you had to die to fulfill your agenda."

"No. Not exactly; I made my plan to that end as I did not think I had any reason to want to live beyond it. You are the one thing I never foresaw. I've found a reason now to move forward, to live, to dream… hence the new goals and the new plan."

"And you're going to let me in on it, beginning this evening after five?"

He broke out in a crooked grin. "Measure by measure shall I reveal it to you. This new mask; step one in my plan, to be able to move freely about during the day, to appear normal and avoid undue attention in public. Step two; to use my new face to obtain a legal identity. These parts of my plan, Evey, are completed as of today."

"You have a name now?" she gasped, trying to keep from raising her voice.

"I should probably have discussed this with you sooner, but the truth is that once I'd thought it through, I knew it was the right choice. I only hope you don't think me too forward."

"Forward? Why would I think such a thing about your name?" She was truly puzzled and her puzzlement increased when she saw how he fidgeted and suddenly seemed almost… shy.

He sighed. "Might as well get to it." With that he produced an ID card and handed it to her.

She looked down, read it and then reread it. Her voice was shaking when she spoke.

"You took my name…" it was almost a whisper.

He cupped her cheek with his hand. "I have no true name I could ever hope to offer you. Given this, I hope that you don't mind that I took yours as it is a name I hold in highest regard."

She covered his hand with her own. "I'm honored beyond words."

He stood then, leaned forward and pulled her to him for a quick kiss and it was one of those moments that she knew she would remember forever. The sun hit him full on as their lips parted, so that she opened her eyes to see his deep blue ones revealed in all their depth and softened by a great emotion staring back at her.

There was a cough and they both started and then chuckled at having been caught by the waiter, who had returned with their drinks.

Still having so much to ask, she found it excruciating to have to wait while V placed their order. As soon as the waiter had moved on, she got around to it, "Your ID has only the initial V. for a first name." When he merely nodded, a smirk firmly in place, she continued, "I know that your official files must have a full name listed. By the way, I assume you did this all by hacking the system?"

"They do and I did."

She let out a frustrated, "Oh you!" then finally burst out, "Are you intentionally trying to kill me? Tell me what it is!"

He could no longer fight a grin. "Evey, I shall always be V. It is my name now as surely as if I were born with it and it is what I wish you to address me by. But for legality's sake, I chose the name, Vartan, which means 'giver of roses'."

She started to snicker.

"Please do not use it unless absolutely necessary. I certainly won't."

"Vartan Hammond," she said aloud so that she could hear it, then at the face he made, she repeated it the way he wished to hear it. "V. Hammond." Then she handed him back his ID. "I like it; very much, in fact."

He accepted the card and placed it back in his new wallet, which he then tucked away in a back pocket. "I'm glad that you approve."

"So then, what is this next part of the plan?"

"My dear, you'll just have to wait until later. Measure by measure, remember? For now, let's just enjoy this, our first time together out in public during the day."

Filling their wine glasses he handed one to her and lifted his own in a toast.

"To the Hammonds."

"To the plan, whatever it is," she countered.

"To you..."he insisted.

"To us."

"Evey, you've brought us back to square one," he laughed.

"Kiss me?"she asked, suddenly very serious.

"Every chance I can," he replied as he granted her request.

**FIN**

The story continues in **Second Chances**.

Meanwhile be on the lookout for a stand-alone entitled **The Pendant, **available on my home page (due to content)

**Push**

lyrics by Sarah Mclachlan

Every time I look at you the world just melts away  
All my troubles all my fears dissolve in your affections  
You've seen me at my weakest but you take me as I am  
And when I fall you offer me a softer place to land

_CHORUS:_  
You stay the course you hold the line you keep it all together  
You're the one true thing I know I can believe in  
You're all the things that I desire, you save me, you complete me  
You're the one true thing I know I can believe

I get mad so easy but you give me room to breathe  
No matter what I say or do 'cause you're to good to fight about it  
Even when I have to push just to see how far you'll go  
You wont stoop down to battle but you never turn to go

_CHORUS_

Your love is just the antidote when nothing else will cure me  
There are times I cant decide when I cant tell up from down  
You make me feel less crazy when otherwise I'd drown  
But you pick me up and brush me off and tell me I'm OK  
Sometimes thats just what we need to get us through the day

_CHORUS_


End file.
